Information Wars

Gil did not find Culwych to be particularly impressive. He was objectively in good shape, but compared to Gawain he just seemed like a small, earnest dweeb and didn’t pull off the bowl cut half as well as the other knights in Camelot. Gil thought he could probably personally take the guy, and given that knights appeared to be a ruling warrior caste that devoted their entire lives to being as badass as possible, that was pretty damning. In fact there was only two things remotely impressive about Culwych: his skill at networking and the fact he’d managed to land Olwen.

Olwen was roughly seven feet tall, with alabaster skin and hair that was not blonde. It was yellow, looking almost fake in its sheer vibrancy. Her eyes glowed with a fierce inner light and her cheeks had deep red markings upon them. Nobody treated this as remotely strange, and other than her size and appearance she seemed to be a more or less normal, surprisingly domestic woman.

Apparently she was the daughter of some bigshot giant king. Culwych had needed to perform a series of trials to prove himself worthy of her hand, and he’d been absolutely carried by the Knights of the Round Table in a year long campaign of legendary wingmanship. Gawain had been present, as had been Arthur’s seneschal Kay, and to hear him tell of it, that had been a really crazy year. Immortal animals and the Wild Hunt were involved.

The defenders, at least supposedly, had around a week left to work with before Arthur’s armies were scheduled to show up, and to his credit Culwych didn’t waste time asking questions. He immediately sent runners to his allies asking for reinforcements and mobilized his own men for war. The assembled host would be a fair bit larger than it would have been if they hadn’t gotten here ahead of time. Then again, Gil was basically just hoping that would matter.

He walked around trying to look important while the real work was done, and felt a bit useless in all honesty. He did manage one thing, with Rose’s help: he made an offer to Olwen, and learned something concerning.

The sales pitch was simple: it seemed very likely that Kusai was going to come and capture her if he could. However, by general PVP rules that no one sane opted out of, it was impossible for someone to truly capture someone in another player’s retinue. If Olwen sold her soul to Gil, he could hold it in trust and return it after the danger was passed. The only problem? The people here were religious. Like, really religious. Olwen turned him down flat and then started praying in the chapel for their god to do basically the same thing. It didn’t seem likely to pan out; unaffiliated deus ex machina was heavily regulated in PVP bouts.

He encouraged her to allow Sir Lucan to safeguard her with his powers instead, but to be perfectly frank Gil didn’t care all that much what happened to her except on general principle. Married woman with kids was about to get kidnapped, and she was friends with a friendly acquaintance. That was enough reason for him to make the attempt, but as long as Lucan came out on top Gil was getting paid.

What was interesting, however, was that after the rejection Gil’s timer was acting oddly. Usually it only lasted about an hour. This time, it lasted nearly a day despite the timer showing an hour. It just moved very, very slow. If Gil was right, that meant that time might still be passing back at the skyblock, just at a rate of roughly one hour per day. It might even fuck with his planned schedule for weekly portals if he was in this world for months.

It also meant that he could only make one pact every twenty four days or so, so he wouldn’t be making a grand harvest even if he had figured out a way to rationalize poaching in Lucan’s territory. More’s the pity.

Almost as bad, the cartography in this world was abysmal. Nothing anywhere near good enough to use that map trick that had worked out so well in Brockton, anyway. That turned out to be somewhat less of a problem than expected, as it genuinely appeared that Culwych had a court fit to make a tester blush or salivate.

When Gil explained why he needed the maps, the thoroughly normal looking thirty-something man sent a few runners and within the hour introduced him to Clust and Gwiawn. When Rose explained the trajectory of the cluster of burning letters, Gwiawn quite literally squinted at the horizon and declared that they were probably headed towards the house of the king of Ireland, King Anguish.

“Is his wife beautiful?” Gil asked, “Or daughters?”

“Oh yes! Queen Iseult the Elder is quite lovely, though as she has aged her daughter has indeed overtaken her.” Clust said, “As a beauty, and as a healer.”

“Yep.” Gil said under his breath. “They’re definitely getting hit if there’s two of them.”

Two women, both known for beauty and an actual marketable skill? For some guys, the idea of grabbing a mother and daughter at the same time would at least double their value. Hell, if the guy had Everlasting Talent and the daughter was basically just an improved copy of the mother, they’d be indistinguishable from twins by the time mom was aged back to her prime.

“Oh no!” Clust said, “Lady Isolde’s already been married to King Mark of Cornwall. Then again, they are coming from that direction…”

Gil sighed. He was very tempted to head over and observe the battle, but he didn’t really have a plan for what to do if Kusai decided to smack him down. Echidna wasn’t exactly a stealthy mode of travel.

Wait. Duh. He was talking to a random guy with super senses.

“Hey, can you see the enemy?” He asked. “Rose, point him out.”

Gwiawn strained his eyes, but couldn’t make out whatever transportation they were using. Clust, however, had something to say after cupping his ears in the right direction.

“I can hear something, but I don’t rightly know what it is.” He said, “It is like a hummingbird, if every flap of its wings were a thunderclap.”

Gil nodded. That sounded a bit like a helicopter, honestly, but he wasn’t sure if it would fit the setting. It was a soft rule, with ten million exceptions, but matchmaking tended to prefer pairing like to like. General genre overlap was only a nice to have, but in an infinite universe of options they could manage it more often than not. Then again, Keilnei was a highly religious goat girl who’d spent half her life riding around in a space ship before it was sabotaged by mana addicted elves, so “Fantasy” was a big tent. Even so, Camelot seemed to be a firmly medieval grounded fantasy, so he doubted he was looking at facing down an Apache attack helicopter.

Gil drummed his fingers. He still didn’t know enough about this guy. Just running up to him and screaming a challenge seemed likely to get Gil killed to no effect, but knowledge was power and direct observation was the only way he could do more than broadly guess.

If only he had something disposable to throw at the enemy, just to see how they reacted. Something he didn’t mind losing, or even better, something or someone that he’d benefit from the death of. Lucan’s chaff would all be resurrected after the match ended, per the rules of PvP bouts, but honestly a bunch of T2 bandits would primarily give data in the form of the method and ease with which they were mown down like wheat.

Gil tapped his fingers on the rampart, then stopped. A win win scenario sprang to mind, fully formed. All Gil needed to do was arrange it.

“Guys… Culwych mentioned that you were trackers.” He said, “Any chance you guys could find Sir Balin the Savage in the next few days?”

According to Gawain and a few people in Culhwch’s court, Balin was some kind of wandering one man army. Loyal to Arthur, but in a perpetual state of semi exile due to a nearly endless series of social faux pas and a few shockingly avoidable calamities. Nearly ten percent of the British isles had been turned into a cursed wasteland after he’d misused some kind of holy spear associated with the local god on one particularly unfortunate occasion.

If the walking disaster won that fight, then Gil could head home with a few credits of bounty plus a dragon and a free horse. Gil could easily walk away happy with that. If he lost, then Gil won because he could take credit and Nimue would know he was as good as his word.

“Eh… he’s not close enough to hear.” Clust said.

“I haven’t seen him in a fair bit.” Gwiawn added. “Maybe Menw can find him?”

“I don’t know if he’s up for leaving the castle, though.” Clust answered. “He was always better at hiding than finding, anyway.”

Gil filed that away for later, and shrugged. He was certainly interested in strange superheroes, but that didn’t mean he was going to ignore the main objective to go retinue hunting. Kusai’s decision to do so was probably the only advantage they had. He did have one more avenue to pursue, and of course he might be able to convince the king to give him a hand.

“Well, I’ll just need to confer with the Lady of the Lake.” He said. “I imagine she’d take a great interest in his whereabouts.”

••••••••••

And upon the very day that the knight who had worn the smiling mask did seek counsel with the Lady of the Lake on the matter of Sir Balin du Savage, another knight returned to Camelot.

Sir Lancelot du Loc, who had been otherwise engaged in diverse adventures, did return upon the council of Merlin, who did appear to him in the guise of a raven.

And Merlin said “Swiftly, without delay, sir knight! You must return with all haste to Camelot, for a crisis has arisen and King Arthur shall have need of his finest knight!”

So Lancelot did as commanded, riding night and day to reach the court of King Arthur. When he arrived, he spake to the men still garrisoned there.

They told him, “The king has gone forth to aid his cousin, King Culhwch, upon the council of Sir Lucan and Merlin.”

“Curse Merlin!” Said Lancelot, “For indeed I was to the north of Camelot, and may have met them there had I been told where the danger lay! At first light, I shall take another horse and pursue his host.”

Though honor compelled him to run to his king’s aid, love compelled another course of action. So that night, he stood outside the door to Queen Guinevere’s chambers, speaking through the closed portal of all that was upon their hearts, though they never intended to look upon one another that night.

Then a strange crack sounded within the Queen’s chamber, and Lancelot heard unknown words of enchantment uttered by a woman he did not know. Roused by fear and anger, Lancelot did burst into the room where he saw fair Queen Guinevere standing as if in a daze, gazing upon a strange woman with quick, pale hands and hair the color of flame.

Guenevere spake, “Fear not, my champion, for I am safe. You may go from this place and know I am well.”

Lancelot, who had been raised among enchantresses, saw through this deception. He raised up his ring, a gift from his godmother the Lady of the Lake, and the stone within did shatter the enchantment placed upon Queen Guinevere, who fled from the strange woman.

The fire haired enchantress pointed a short rod of yew at him, and Lancelot narrowly dodged a stream of deadly light from its tip. The mightiest knight of Arthur’s court drew his dagger and did strike the deadly implement from her hand, shattering it with his heel when it landed upon the stones.

The firey haired enchantress was overcome with the despair, wailing with such lamentations that Lancelot saw fit to restrain her lest she do herself harm.

Elsewhere, Merlin smiled as many tragic paths closed before him.