The White Knight #2
If only it hadn't given him a fucking katana.
Turning away from the board, he stroked Nevermore's nose and weighed his options.
This game was supposed to have all new advances in adaptive gaming, meaning it changed significantly based on user decisions.
It was open world, free choice, to a level no game had been to date.
The developer, Monmouth Games, had been particularly cagey about how they'd done all they claimed.
Time to see how much was truth and how much lies. Especially since his elite package promised experiences that other users wouldn't get. Fuck this was going to be so much fun.
Leaving his horse tied up outside, he finally stepped into the tavern, which was crowded and bustling, all sorts of chatter happening, conversations that actually sounded authentic to casual listening.
He brushed off the barmaid who approached him, and then the scantily clad young man who tried to catch his attention, mouth twitching with amusement.
Casting his eyes around, he finally settled on a woman sitting in the corner crying.
She wore a particular shade of green for her apron, indicating an easy quest. Probably too easy, but he'd learned the hard way with Monmouth's previous games not to bite off more than he could chew.
Approaching the woman, he waited until she looked up before bowing slightly. "You seem troubled, Mistress. Is there some way this humble knight could serve you?"
He could just speak normally, there was no requirement in this game to speak a certain way like some did for the immersion factor, but what was the point in playing a game like this if you weren't going to throw yourself into it wholeheartedly?
The woman sniffled. "You're most kind, sir knight. A bandit attacked me on Highmore Road, and while I don't care that he took my food and money, he also stole my kitten, and I should very much like to have her back."
He had to rescue a kitten? That was fucking adorable. "It would be my honor to retrieve your kitten, and all else I can, mistress."
"Thank you so much," the woman said, and offered her right hand. Lance took it in both of his, and the quest blinked into existence on his master list. Leaving the woman, he headed back outside, swung into the saddle, and turned his horse to the crossroads.
Thankfully, there was a legible sign, not something that would be present for more difficult quests. Taking the road marked Highmore, he rode at an easy pace the horse could maintain for hours, even though it was only at level five.
It didn't take him long to find the faint, worn footpath that led into the woods. He turned his horse that way and rode onward into the trees. He pulled his bow off his back and nocked an arrow, eyes peeled for easy pickings to start his collection of supplies for bartering and creating.
After he'd managed to bag three rabbits and one fox, he found another footpath with a bit of ribbon snagged on a thorny branch. As he stood there, the barest, faintest crying of an unhappy kitten reached his ears.
Grinning, he left his horse in the little clearing by the brook to enjoy some water and grass, and forged on alone, swapping his bow for his stupid, albeit powerful, katana.
He crept through the grass, moving carefully, as stealthily as his level five stats would allow.
The sound of the crying kitten grew louder, closer, until he came up to a convenient cluster of hedges and peered over the top of them to see…
That something wasn't right.
There was a kitten, sort of, but the thief he was intended to vanquish or at least run off was nowhere to be seen, and the kitten was…glitching. Black. White. Calico. Gray. Shorthair. Longhair.
Annoyance washed over him. A bug, seriously? His first quest, an obvious baby-steps starter quest, and it was bugging? Standing to his full height, Lance snapped his fingers twice to bring up chatter.
His annoyance turned into confusion when he could find no mention anywhere of the glitch. Just eager, excited praise for how awesome and surprising the game was right from the jump. Huffing, he dismissed chatter and stepped around the hedges before approaching the magical changing kitten.
It was sitting in lush green grass right by the edge of a beautiful little pond, where all colors of goldfish swam and ridiculously pretty water lilies floated along the top. They'd always been his favorite flower.
Flower of the Divine, Crown of the Queen, Crest of the White Knight.
Lance shook his head. Where had that come from?
Was it the game? But he'd never heard of a game that got in your head that way.
Hell, it took expensive add-ons to be able to get the full immersion experience, and while he had some good ones, nothing he had was that good.
He was pretty sure only the military might have technology like that.
Pushing the weird, random thought away, he crouched down by the weird, glitching kitten to scoop it up—and suddenly everything was black. Cold. Really cold, like he was outside in the snow and not in an expensive video game with decent immersions.
Then everything snapped back into place. The whole weird incident couldn't have lasted more than a second, two at most.
In his hands, the kitten was gone, and his gleaming silver gauntlet was instead smeared with red liquid.
His heart seized in his chest before his brain caught up and realized it wasn't blood.
Not the right shade of red, more like apples or strawberries, and it had glitter or something in it that made it sparkle and shine.
The strange red liquid started moving—spreading. Lance's heart sped up as panic seized him. A virus? Was the weird kitten glitch spreading to him? What the fuck was going on?
It was hot. Burning.
Then the pain hit him like a brick to the face. Lance screamed, jerked and flailed, trying to get the substance off. "Computer, pain sensors off!"
Nothing. No chirp, no chime, not even the annoying voice he usually muted because he hadn't gotten around to buying a voice pack he liked. The liquid kept spreading, the pain kept increasing.
Liquid fire of the King of No Return.
Before he could process that thought, the strangeness of it, some instinct kicked in, and Lance threw himself into the pond.
He swam down, down, down, to the very bottom of the pond, where the water was so cold that very little could grow or decay.
Waters of the Queen, of the Lady, of the child she claimed as her own.
He stood on the bottom and took deep, heaving breaths as the liquid fire slowly sputtered, died, and sloughed off in harmless flakes.
What in the fuck was going on. He was standing at the bottom of a pond, but this far down, it looked more like an enormous lake. Far too vast for a little pond in a small forest clearing. Was this for a later quest, something he hadn't been meant to find so soon?
He pulled up his stats, but there was nothing there that would allow him to just stand and breathe water like this. That sort of thing was always in the late stages of a game, especially open world games like this that never really ended.
Fuck this, he was done for the night. He was logging out, and then he was going to contact the support line and give them roughly a dozen pieces of his mind over how stupidly glitchy this game was.
"Game over," he said.
Nothing. Just like with the pain sensors, it was as though the computer wasn't listening to him. Like it wasn't there at all. "Computer! Game over!" Still nothing. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "Computer, emergency shutdown, Lance Waters, 6793-203-1569."
Nothing. That wasn't possible. Ever since the Dragonwake Tragedy of 2067, computer escape laws had been really fucking strict. Everything made had to be able to respond to a universal emergency shut down order. This didn't make any sense.
Damn it. Maybe if he went back to the tavern, where nothing had seemed to be glitchy. Pushing off the bottom of the pond-lake-whatever, he swam to the surface and broke through in a frantic rush.
Definitely still a pond up here. So yeah, probably a later quest revealed the pond was really a lake. Whatever, he didn't care right now. He wanted out.
Swimming to the bank, he heaved himself up and out, then knelt on the ground, trying to catch his breath, give his sore muscles a chance to rest.
Fuck, why did this all feel so real? Way beyond any immersion sensors he knew of, and he didn't have those sensors anyway.
The sound of rattling metal, swords being drawn, orders being shouted from behind face shields, drew his attention—and Lance stared in shock as he was surrounded by easily ten knights in armor that was black like an oil slick.
What in the absolute fuck was going on?
"This is the one," one of the knights said. "Capture him."
"Stop!" Lance howled, and barely rolled out of the way as two of them swung swords that were way too big to be practical. He gained his feet just in time to be sent flying into a tree, but didn't have time to puzzle over the way it cracked and splintered before he was being attacked again.
"Stop it! Leave me alone! Stop it!" Lance cried as he tried to shield himself from the blows, the hands that tried to grip him, kicking and twisting and lunging until he was finally free, or at least had space to draw his own sword, which seemed to ring like a bell in crisp winter air.
Behind him, the pond seemed to shudder, splashing against the banks and casting water across the grass.
Holding his sword ready, Lance said, "Stand down, and I'll grant you mercy, but if you press onward, you'll be given no quarter." Surprising no one, the knights ignored his offer of mercy and resumed the fight.
With a roaring battle cry, Lance threw himself into the fight, sending two crashing into trees with a rush of pounding water from the pond. He took the head off one, cast another into the pond, and stabbed the second in the throat with a dagger pulled from his belt.
Then there were five.
He grinned, all teeth and barely-restrained rage, and beckoned the leader, a captain by his markings. "Ready to finish this?"
The captain sent the other four at him and lobbed something in the moment he thought Lance was distracted—more of that fucking liquid fire.
Rage consumed Lance, and he called up the water behind him with a bellow, slamming it into all of them, dousing the fire before it could bring harm.
As the water receded, he made certain each and every one of the knights was dead, including the ones he'd thrown into the trees.
He stood in the midst of the carnage, chest heaving, still trembling with anger. How dare these fucking bastards—
Lance stopped. What was wrong with him?
Even as he had the thought, though, it spun away as a horrible stabbing pain filled his head. He sheathed his sword, barely, then stumbled his way to the pond, not stopping until he was in up to his waist.
Better. The pain wasn't gone, but it was mitigated. Muffled. He could think.
But nothing he thought about made sense. The weird kitten. The weird pond. His way weirder behavior with the anger and the water.
Son of the Lady. Son of the Queen. Son of the Water.
You will be the first.
He pressed his hands to his temples, trying to relieve the pain that had come roaring back, turning to face out over the water. Not a pond now, but a true lake, spanning so far he couldn't see its end. His eyes blurred, tears streaming down his cheeks.
A choice must be made.
Slowly lowering his hands, the words echoing over and over in his head, Lance peeled his eyes open. He'd just wanted to play a game. What was happening? Why was it happening?
As he watched, water lilies floated into view, one right after the other, until he was completely surrounded by them.
They were all pink, delicate and pretty…
save for one, which was as white as snow, not a single hint of yellow or pink.
His heart raced as it drew closer, memories like shadows flickering through his mind.
Go forth as you will, my child, and take with you my love and protection.
Thank you, Mother, for everything.
The perfect white water lily slowly opened, and fresh tears streamed down his face for no reason he could find, even as the sight of the ring in the middle of the lily made his heart ache.
Hope and dread twisted together in his stomach, as sharp as the stench of fresh-spilled blood lingering in the air.
A choice must be made.
The ring was the choice. He had won his battle, met the challenge sent to test him, and now he had only to claim his boon.
A soft chime in his ear signaled his computer was listening to him again. He could leave right now, forget this whole strange night. Go back to normal.
Only you can wake the rest of us.
Heart pounding in his ears, Lance plucked the ring from the water lily. Jolts like electricity shot through him, like they were racing through every one of his veins. He gasped, fist tightening around the ring, its sharp edges digging into his skin.
He uncurled his fingers slowly and stared at the ring. Gleaming gold, but harder than steel, set with a pearl that had not been made in this realm, gifted to him by his mother, Queen of the Waters, known to humans as the Lady of the Lake.
He slid the ring onto the middle finger of his right hand—
—and suddenly Lancelot was back in his apartment. In Lance's apartment. In his, fuck, there was too much going on in his head. Lance Waters. Lancelot of the Lake, the White Knight, greatest of Arthur's knights, beloved of—
No, he couldn't think about that yet. He'd lose whatever mind he still had left.
Something clattered to the floor as he sat up, and Lancelot stared at the sheathed sword lying on the cheap tile floor. He climbed out of his gaming chair and crouched to retrieve it, running his thumb over the hilt before drawing the sword partly from the sheath.
It gleamed in the various lights of his chair, splashes of green and blue and yellow making rainbows of the ripples etched into the blade. Arondight, another gift from his mother and her ladies in waiting, sister sword to Excalibur.
Sheathing it again, Lancelot heaved a sigh. "Why is it still a fucking katana!"