"Magic simplyis.It's people that make it good, bad, stupid, or otherwise."Merlin started to say more, but a familiar wet growling sound drew their attention.
Lancelot drew his sword and shield.
"Still can't believe your sword is akatana," Merlin said with a snorting laugh.
"Shut up," Lancelot muttered, and then they were surrounded as the kobolds came literally out of the walls, slippery, shadowy things that they were, pustulant and putrid.Seriously,howhad he forgotten this smell?
Arondight flashed with blue-green light as he plunged into the fight, slicing kobolds into pieces and battering others with his shield.At his back, Merlin fought with magic, earth to Lance's water.Arthur had always found it vastly entertaining that they were so much alike despite all the ways they should have been complete opposites.
He fought until his body ached, until he started to feel nauseous from the exertion.The worst thing about kobolds was that they came in large packs or not at all.He'd never fought less than thirty at a time, and this group, by the time he was able to slow and then finally stop, clearly numbered well over a hundred.If they weren't smaller and easily taken out in twos and threes, this would have been a much nastier fight.
"Fuck, that was exhausting," Lancelot said, slumping down to sit on a relatively clean boulder.Merlin trudged over to slump right next to him, face dripping with sweat and Kobold blood.They both smelled like the ass end of a garbage dump half-filled with dead bodies.Thank god for nose-blindness, though even that couldn't entirely solve the problem.Groaning and stretching, Lancelot then sank to one knee and pressed his hand flat on the ground, eyes slipping shut as he concentrated.
"There's water…that way."He stood on stiff legs and headed off, Merlin just steps behind him, the pair trudging through the dark, grimacing at their own stench.After several minutes of walking, he could hear first a trickle and then the rush of a current, until Merlin's bobbing mage lights revealed a beautiful underground lake lit by glowing lichen and churned by a waterfall that must be at least twenty feet high.
"Thank the gods," Merlin said, and immediately began stripping before wading into the water.
Lancelot followed suit after sweeping the area one last time for any potential threats he may have missed on first look.Thankfully, all seemed peaceful.If Maleagant had plans other than kobolds—or, gods forbid, more kobolds—he was biding his time.
He dove into the water and went down, down, down, relishing the dark and cold unique to the bottom of a lake.Here, without sunlight, he could see nothing, floating in a void where the only sensation was the delightfully biting cold of the water.The water sang and chattered, sharing stories of every inhabitant, every stranger that had ever wandered through.
Even though it was a brand new video game, and such things shouldn't be possible.He was starting to think the game was less…well, a game, and more like a pathway to some strange world secreted away so the fight could continue away from all else.
He pushed off the bottom of the lake and swam up, breaking the surface and searching out his companion, who was sprawled on a flat rock nearby."Merlin, are we in one of those isolated worlds you used to talk about incessantly?"
"Pocket universe is what they call them now, but yes, I think that is precisely what is happening.The game is the gateway, or transition point, or whatever you want to call it.When certain requirements are met, the game shifts to the pocket universe.Not what I expected when I cast theSecond Chancespell, but that is the danger of high magic.It's never what you think, and often bites back harder than it helps."
Lancelot smiled wryly."The solution is worse than the problem?That doesn't surprise me.Hopefully we'll work it out, anyway.Regardless, we had no choice.Better to pay a steep price to try for victory than pay nothing and lose everything."
Merlin nodded.
Lancelot drifted easily through the water, staring up at the cave ceiling, the pointed rocks hanging from it like nu-art chandeliers.He could never remember if they were stalagmites or stalactites.
"I know you feel the water differently, Iknowthat," Merlin said, "but it still boggles me you're not freezing to death while my balls tried to crawl back up inside my body."
"I have anti-freeze in my blood," Lancelot said with a laugh."Not the term I would have used back in the day.Mama only ever said our blood was 'made differently' than that of humans, and when she took me in, she adapted me accordingly.I looked it up one day while I was working on getting my sick leave from work.Anti-freeze proteins, fun stuff."He dipped his legs down and swam to shore until he could walk, leisurely dragging himself out of the water to dry off and warm up where Merlin had built a fire.After he was done, he went through his inventory for fresh clothes and armor.Things he hadn't owned before Merlin worked his computer magic somehow to get them both nicely set up."Wonder if we'll ever get a chance to, you know, play the game, acquire some of the more useful stuff you can't get for us by cheating."
"There is a castle I'd like to get a closer look at," Merlin said quietly."On the map, that section is grayed over, but you can just barely see a castle marker.The creators have been spare about details, so I couldn't find any info, just a bunch of bluster and talk.Still, its surrounded by dense woods and the edge of an enormous lake is just visible, and the whole area is calledKingdom of the Lost.It's confirmed to be a late-game quest, so we're far from ready for it, but…" He shrugged and stared at the fire.
But he hoped it washome.Camelot.Given the game was apparently just their entry point to a pocket universe where they would fight the battle of Camlann all over again… logic followed there must be a Camelot.
"I miss Camelot, but I'm not going to lie, I hope this version has a lot of modern conveniences."
Merlin laughed, poorly muffling the noise with one hand."We'll make certain of it, never fear, because I for one have no desire to ever again piss in a bucket or where the wind can rush up my ass."
"Can't say it's wholly awful to be able to appreciate how far the world has come in such a unique way," Lancelot said, looking out over the cave, though there was little more than darkness, save where the lichen grew.He munched on the food in his inventory, amused that component lingered, despite the whole pocket universe thing, and then he and Merlin heaved to their feet to tidy the camp and continue the journey.
Unfortunately, the map they called up was of little use, only lighting up portions of the cave complex as they traveled them.Eventually, though, after a particularly hairy crawl through a narrow passage, they spilled out into an enormous chamber that could have been a meeting hall or something.A temple sanctuary.High above was a hole that seemed small but was probably several feet wide, shining down brilliant sunlight and setting the whole room ablaze in golden light.
Lancelot called up his map."Temple of the Sun.Yeah, saw that coming."
Merlin snickered."Where there's a temple, there's a totally normal entrance, which is the best news I've heard in hours."
Yet as they looked around, Lancelot could find no sign of an entrance.Sharing a look with Merlin, they each picked a direction as they ran the circumference of the sanctuary, a hand on the wall the entire time.When they met at the opposite end, Lancelot huffed."So much for an entrance."
"Could be hidden or otherwise rendered inactive," Merlin said thoughtfully."So players can only wander so far off course and get so far ahead.I suppose I should devote some time to cracking all those blocks, so we can move through the game uninhibited, but that will take days of work."
Lancelot shrugged one shoulder."Skip it, at least until it proves necessary otherwise.We always seem to be able to go where we need, so far."He squinted up at the hole in the cave ceiling."Though, I admit, an easy and obvious entrance would be nice right now."
