Arthurian Cultivation

As we sunk into the maze of ancient corridors, the flickering light of our lamps illuminated the walls, where the roots worked through like fingers casting long shadows. I felt my skin prickle. This place was laced with death glamour. Ancient deaths, none of the will remained. The power should’ve dispersed as well, but the stillness here, the sheer number of dead had let it gather like a stagnant pool.

This place once a monument to power was now a grand tomb.

Here and there there was damage to the walls. Cracks in the floor from great impacts. Occasionally we spotted faded rust marks on the floor, scraps of gold and other corroded bits of metal that marked where bodies may have once lain. Time had made this place peaceful, but I figured if we’d arrived even a decade after the disaster struck we’d have found corpses littering the halls.

Our pace was slow. Thanks to Tristan we’d avoided a fair few traps. Tristan watched for the runes and kept our pace slow. It was infuriating but necessary. The grisly remains of beasts showed exactly how badly that could go.

We were heading towards what we hoped was the centre of the complex. Occasionally we'd find a fork in the path, empty doorways to choose from. There we'd pause and I'd work with Bors to examine our options.

The place felt eerily quiet. I hadn't expected to find myself missing the fae whispers, but I did. There was something wrong about a place so majestic and vast being empty.

Finally, after what seemed like days of walking but may have been a scant hour or two, we found a far grander room. While much of the halls and the few larger rooms we’d found had felt functional, maybe being training grounds or mess halls, now we were closer to the centre of the complex.

The archway we found was grand, gold leaf still clinging to the beautifully carved runes in a language none of us could speak. We picked our way past the rubble that had fallen in its mouth, a fallen balcony of some sort from the fancy broken balustrades that were part of the debris.

The room was vast, the faint light of our lamps struggling to fill the space.

It had to be a central chamber, a hub with three exits on the ground floor and a sweeping set of stairs wide enough for ten men abreast to march down. The edges were styled like the bark of a tree, giving the sense that the whole thing was carved out of a tree. This led up to a landing before breaking apart into two curling stairways that led to shadow soaked galleries high above.

The room felt more whole than the rest of the complex. The roots hadn’t broken through here. I looked up. A lonely doorway clogged with a single huge root had broken through, tearing away what once must’ve been a commanding balcony that overlooked the grand space. The ceiling beyond was beautiful, the art old and faded but still alive with a picture of knights kneeling before a grand oak.

It was a motif that we’d seen plenty during our walks. Knights kneeling before an Oak, sometimes with an axe wielding figure emerging from the bark. It seemed that once long ago this fallen Order had venerated the Green Knight and his Oak. It left me wondering what had changed.

“Go up or down?”

“Up definitely, I bet those paths would have us looping back on what we’ve already found,” Bors replied. “This is the first path up we’ve found.”

We moved quietly forward, waiting for the little noises that Tristan made to indicate that things were safe.

That was until Bors stopped as we approached the base of the stairs.

“Gather up, something is wrong here.”

“What do you mean?” Maeve looked around, eyes scanning the many exits both high on the galleries and below.

“There's something wrong with the stairs. This is all marble, and while the earth is telling me they're exactly right, the crystals? There's something wrong, like they're not in the right patterns.” He knelt and pulled off his gauntlet so he could press his hand to the cool surface.

“It’s strange, like I can’t say what’s wrong, just that something is,” Bors grunted, his brows knotted with focus.

“Taliesin, check it out,” Tristan whispered into my ear. Much like Kay was our Marshal, Tristan was our infiltration specialist. He was in command of our operation here.

I pulled out some old pine. The dead ferns, when dried properly, went up fast and threw off a good amount of smoke. I used the fire from the lamp to start a small fire. I still felt a little uneasy about making fire within the Oak’s domain, but with the fae whispers gone I felt that the judgemental attention had eased.

I let the smoke gather for a moment before sending it out. I controlled it tightly. I didn't want the scent to spread and potentially alert those with sensitive noses. I forced it to act against its nature, making it flow across the floor and slowly rise up the steps like a reverse waterfall.

I shut my eyes to help my control. I was lucky that the air in this hall was so still or this would've been impossible.

“Keep going, it's not till you're more than halfway up,” Bors directed.

I kept pushing smoke up, feeling it roll up step after step. I wondered if I'd got things right, if I'd gone past the halfway point. Had I felt something?

Maybe a slight shift in my control, a nudge against my senses. No, no, I calmed down, everything felt fine, there was nothing to worry about.

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“Well that's a problem,” Tristan muttered beside me.

“What do you…” I opened my eyes only to see the smoke, that my mind was insisting was flowing up each stair, was in fact flowing through the steps as if they were a perfectly level hill. Something snapped inside me and I could sense my smoke properly, feel what it was actually doing rather than what the runes wanted me to feel.

“Illusion,” Tristan muttered.

“Delusion, dream glamour. It felt like the steps were in place till I could see they weren’t.” As I said it, my eyes focused and unfocused as my mind took hold of the idea that the stairs were not whole.

Before me the world changed. A vast hole, with a thin sheen of fake stairs appeared in the middle of the steps. It stretched the width of the stairs, only the banisters escaped, leaving a yawning pit before us.

I sent my smoke down into the dark. There waiting for us was a deep pit, a hundred feet deep. The bottom lined with spikes. A great deal of corpses, mostly beasts from the size of the bones, were scattered along the bottom. There were also a few shapes that spoke to armour and skulls of human proportion dotted about.

It was an abundant well of death glamour, the place thick with power.

“This has killed plenty. There's people down there, their armour's intact so I doubt it’s the original inhabitants of this place.”

“There’s stairs folded into the side of the walls. Looks like this trap was built into the stairs,” Bors said, examining the edge of the hole.

“Should we be worried?” That came from Sephy. She and Maeve were keeping watch as we inspected.

“It’s potent, there are old runes that don’t work and newer ones that do. This new stuff has to be Merl—Nermil’s work.” Tristan’s voice came from the shadows. “I can feel the dream glamour rooted in it. You have a strong will to see through this, Bors.”

“I’ve been paying a lot of attention to my crystal gift lately. There are patterns everywhere, and something just didn’t feel right about them.”

“Still this is worryingly proficient.” Tristan's frown grew far deeper.

“He remains a wizard, runes are his bread and butter. Besides we knew he had dream glamour.”

“He was, perhaps our conman is more like his namesake than we first thought.”

“We continue on. We need to make as much use of our lead on the cultists as possible.”

We followed the banisters which allowed us to avoid the hole. Tristan made certain we didn’t jump across, worried we’d land on some other trap or surprise waiting to catch us off guard on the other side.

That concern proved accurate, though not in the way he’d expected.

As we arrived on the other side, a voice called out to us from the centre of the hall.

“I am the Sage, and I bring you dire tidings.”

As one we turned, weapons out, to see a cloaked figure floating above us in the centre of the hall. A human man, face lost in a hood out of which a long grey beard spilled.

“Listen well.”

A chunk of stone ripped through him, the stone passing right through his chest with nary a ripple. The figure, which had seemed as real as the nose on my face, became transparent and thin.

“Another delusion. The power seems to come from the walls. It’s likely a saved message, but hunt about though, maybe he triggered it directly,” Tristan’s voice found us. We nodded and began to hunt about with our senses.

“Children of iron and oath, do not mistake the veil for absence.” The apparition continued, not reacting to their actions.

I gritted my teeth. Even aware it was fake, the power tried to convince me it was real. A true voice that echoed off the walls.

“You have walked through trial upon trial. You have bled for causes you scarcely understood when first you swore to them. Each of you carries a wound that has not yet closed, though flesh has long since knit.”

Maeve’s fingers tightened on her blade.

“You seek something of great import. Not coin. Something greater.”

Bors shifted. His eyes flicked to me.

“You have begun to understand the rules of this place. You test the edges. You listen when others would shout. You shall listen to me, my warning that has come straight from the Dream.”

The Sage’s head inclined slightly, as if studying us from behind the hood’s shadow.

My smoke couldn’t find anyone. No one was about to puppet this thing. I almost had to respect the theatrics of the moment, a carefully prepared attack on us. It also taught me a fresh limitation of my power. My truth sense had no grip on the words. It appeared I couldn’t sense lies or truth not spoken in the moment.

“Hear my prophecy.”

“I don’t like this if he’s—” Maeve looked ready to leap at the apparition. I put a hand on her shoulder and flashed her a smile, which left her looking confused.

I’d heard his words. I knew his game.

“The path you tread narrows. What has been trial will become judgement. What has been warning will become ending. I see a hall of broken stone. I see blades fallen from lifeless hands. I see one of you standing alone amidst the ruin, understanding too late that prophecy is not promise, but price.”

Sephy inhaled sharply.

“If you continue as you are, if you press where the Dream has drawn a boundary, this place will not merely test you.”

The beard stirred again. The voice softened.

“It will claim you.”

A pause.

“Turn aside. Leave the root untrodden. Leave the old names unspoken. There is still a path that does not end in your tomb.”

The figure’s outline flickered, thinning further against the stone. And then it was gone.

“What do you—” Bors began. The rest of them all looked shocked, different levels of worry on their lips.

Then I began to clap.

“What masterful nonsense. Beautifully crafted!” The others all shot me incredulous looks. And I laughed. The look Maeve shot me suggested I’d just spat on her sword.

“Relax all of you. Maeve you were right to remind us not to call him Merlin. Our Nermil is a conman through and through, this just proves it.”

“You didn’t hear something different did you? This was made who knows how long ago. It knew us—” Bors moaned before I cut him off.

“You have walked through trial upon trial,” I repeated lightly. “How astonishing. Knights who travel through a cursed forest have suffered. Next he’ll tell us that we have enemies.”

Bors frowned. “Taliesin—”

“No, think back on it. It’s clever but not specific.” I gestured up at where the drifting beard had appeared.

“You carry a wound that has not yet closed.” I placed a hand dramatically over my heart. “Tragic. Profound. Same for everyone. Look for a knight without regret, without doubt, without some foolish choice gnawing at them in the dark, and you’ll only find a corpse.”

Maeve’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t interrupt. Sephy beside her was starting to relax, and I almost reached out, only holding back from comforting her, as the whole group needed to hear my words.

“You seek something of great import.” I spread my hands. “No one who reaches here is berry picking. Of course we seek something greater. If you did seek wealth the Green Knight’s rules would see you dead, so by that it means anyone who reaches here has to be seeking something more.”

“It’s a trick.” Sephy nodded. “It’s like how prophecy can mean almost anything if you approach it right.”

“Exactly, it’s just a way to look like he knows what he’s talking about. A way to trick us into backing out.” I smiled. I still loathed Nermil, but I could respect a fellow showman’s work.

“Oh that’s good news.” A grin broke across Bors’ face.

“Why do you say that?”

“It means he’s hoping we run. That means he can’t be that powerful.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Alright what now?”

“We keep exploring. Be on the lookout though. I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface of the traps he’s laid,” Sephy said, pulling herself together and setting her shield. “I want to introduce this bastard into the true power of prophecy.”