Close to midnight and long after her shift had officially ended, Sarah finally made her way out of the royal castle. The maidservant had had a very long day. She was looking forward to a night of unwinding in the tavern. A smile spread across her lips at the thought of a big, strong drink, as well as the company of whatever big, strong soldier she could charm or bully into buying her one. Spending time at the Tall Tales tavern had turned into one of her favourite night-time activities.
Sarah’s grin widened. It was time to have some well-deserved fun.
But fate had other plans. As Sarah made her way past the southern gate, she could hear the sound of voices. The noise was coming from the direction of the tower, drifting down on the chilly autumn wind.
Sarah raised a single eyebrow. That was odd. The tower was supposed to be empty at night. It wasn’t guarded. There was no need to – there was nothing there. Just some old, dusty furniture. And at this hour, everyone was either fast asleep, drunk across a table somewhere or on their way to bed. There was no reason for voices to come from there. No reason for a meeting in an abandoned tower after midnight… unless that reason was less than savoury.
A mischievous grin spread across Sarah’s lips.
What is this? A lover’s secret meeting?
Those were the exact kinds of things that Sarah liked to eavesdrop on. The maidservant couldn’t help herself. She loved scandals. Any thought of getting drunk at the tavern evaporated as, instead, her mind began to fill with all kinds of juicy possibilities. Sarah hadn’t started a good drama in the castle in months. She was bored. A scandal was the perfect way of spicing things up. Her curiosity got the better of her – she had to know.
As she peeked past the flag that hung on the wall… that curiosity was instantly rewarded. But not in the way that Sarah had hoped. What the maidservant ended up listening in to was not a clandestine meeting between star-crossed lovers.
It was something much more dangerous.
“…certainly left quite an impression on the court.”
Over her years of service, the maidservant had learned how to dissolve into the shadows when she needed to. How to move silently, and make sure not to disturb her masters. Sarah had also learned to recognize valuable information when it crossed her path. There were certain things that only servants could pick up on. Sources of information that often proved invaluable.
Sarah instantly knew that this was one of those sources. The maidservant cautiously moved closer, silently stepping in between the shrubbery at her feet.
And her instincts proved to be right.
“What happened to your face?”
“A recent disagreement with an old friend,” Cenred replied. The Crown Prince of Nemeth raised a single eyebrow as he turned away from him.
“I see. You have a peculiar way of treating your allies, Cenred.”
Sarah could hear a cold, emotionless chuckle drift down that made the hairs in her neck stand upright.
“Only for those who betray me.”
The two lowered their voices, making it much more difficult to hear what they were saying. But Sarah knew that she had to keep listening. For Morgana’s sake. The maidservant cautiously crept up even closer.
“… You could have told me who you were. It would have saved a lot of-”
The silence was broken by the sharp snapping sound of a twig breaking. Sarah had mis-stepped. The tiny snap under her foot might as well have been a cannon blast. Her breath got stuck in her throat as, in a rush of adrenaline, she threw herself against the castle wall.
But she wasn’t fast enough.
“…Take your leave, prince. This conversation is no longer private.”
–
–
–
–
The fifth morning of the Knight’s Tournament was one that came paired with drab, cloudy skies. A shroud of grey had pulled over the Kingdom of Camelot, bringing with it the promise of rain.
That didn’t stop the fights in the arena, though.
If anything, the crowd was even more excited. It was to be expected. After four days of fighting, there were not a lot of contestants left. People had chosen sides. Picked favourites. Placed bets.
Today’s matches were the semifinals. And after tomorrow, there would be only one person left. The strongest soldier amongst the entire ranks of nobility. A position of great honour – and also the one who would be facing the Crown Prince of Camelot for the title of Grand Champion.
After four days of cheering and outrageous wagers, the excitement in the arena had turned into a feverish anticipation. And not just amongst the nobles. Gawain had won more matches than anyone else in the tournament, climbing up among the ranks quicker than anyone had imagined. And it showed. Where on the first day the commoner’s stands had been all but empty, now they started to fill up more and more. It would not be long before the guards had to start turning people away.
Arthur looked down from the balcony, absent-mindedly watching Percival’s match as his mind wandered.
We have to put them somewhere. Perhaps they can sit on the wall?
It didn’t take long for Arthur to be drawn out of his pondering. Halfway through Percival’s match, the Crown Prince was brought back to the present by the unexpected arrival of Lancelot. The knight-to-be kneeled down, formally greeting him with:
“My lord.”
Arthur’s expression reflexively pulled into a frown. Lancelot wasn’t supposed to be here. He was meant to be guarding the town and castle. Neither of those things included going anywhere near the tournament grounds. That he would go against orders like this could only mean one thing.
Something had happened.
“What is it?”
“Sire. We have a problem.”
–
–
As the Crown Prince and his second-in-command retreated to the silence of the chapel, they passed by the fighters on the other side of the arena. Gawain was one of them. He watched them go, one eyebrow raised in confusion.
What were they doing?
But the two of them were not the only people acting strange today. He glanced to his left. Elyan was standing by the training area, looking down on one of the equipment racks in silent contemplation. He had been quiet and withdrawn all day. That wasn’t like him at all. The dark-haired swordsman was known for being loud, boastful, short-tempered and always willing to get into a fight. Seeing him this silent felt almost jarring.
But Gawain knew why he was acting like that. The young redhead smiled.
“Trying to decide on a weapon?”
“He usually uses a rapier,” Elyan muttered, his gaze fixed on the equipment in front of him. “He’ll expect me to come at him with a shortsword. But… maybe I should use a falchion or longsword instead to catch him off-guard?”
Gawain knew that Elyan wasn’t really talking to him. He wasn’t entirely sure if his friend had even heard him in the first place. The dark-haired swordsman seemed lost deep in thought, his eyes distant and his brow pulled into a frown. Gawain had never seen him this nervous for a fight before.
Eventually, his friend turned around to face him.
“Truth be told, I’ve never beaten him,” Elyan confessed.
“Not ever?”
“Not ever. Not for lack of trying on my part, either. I’ve challenged him every year from the moment I was able to hold a sword. But that man is a damn force of nature.”
He sized Gawain up and down, hesitating for a moment. Then, that hesitation faded.
“What do you think I should do?”
Elyan had never asked Gawain for advice, either. Not once. The young redhead could feel his chest swell up in pride as part of him felt absolutely giddy over it – but he quickly pushed that part down. Elyan didn’t need that.
“Surprise is good,” Gawain replied, placing his hand on his chin as he began to think out loud. “Changing weapons is not a bad idea. It might do the trick and throw him off. Like with boulder-parchment-shears. If he thinks you’ll pick boulder, he’ll go for parchment. So what you should really do to win is choose shears!”
Elyan snickered.
“Are you comparing my tournament match to a hand game?”
“It’s not that different!” Gawain insisted. “Unless he’ll call your bluff, of course. Then he’ll pick boulder, too, and you’ll still lose.”
“All right, I’ll humour you. What do you think I should pick, then?”
“Oh, that’s easy!”
The young redhead spread out his arms, a large grin appearing on his face as he did so, and yelled:
“Watcher!”
A moment of silence passed.
Then, the dark-haired swordsman let out a snort.
“Pfft! Watcher is not a thing, Gawain.”
“It is! It beats all three because it can be anything!”
“It’s a fake rule.”
“It’s a good rule!”
“Fine,” Elyan chuckled. “How does ‘Watcher’ translate to sword fighting, then? Go on. Explain that.”
But the young redhead wasn’t fazed by his words, his smile still strong and unchanged.
“Sure! It means that you pick whatever you like,” Gawain nodded. “And then you do the best that you can to win with that. Think about it. Who is holding the weapon is more important anyway, right? That’s what mil… Arthur always tells us. I know how strong you are – you could be holding a pitchfork and wearing a bucket over your head and still beat everyone.”
Elyan couldn’t help but let out a chuckle at the visual that came paired with Gawain’s words. It looked ridiculous. But humility had never been Elyan’s strong suit.
“Heh. That is true.”
“Of course it is – oh, we could do that! That will really throw him off. I bet that we can get a pitchfork for you if we asked the guards.”
“I’m not fighting with a pitchfork, you saddle-goose.”
“Oh.”
Elyan shook his head at his friend, still chuckling in amusement. But his posture had changed. His shoulders grew relaxed, the nervousness and anxiety slowly fading away from his expression.
“Hey, Gawain.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
Elyan took a step towards him, holding out his hand. The two shared a warm, brotherly handshake.
“See you in the finals, Gawain.”
“You better come fight me with a pitchfork.”
“Oh, bugger off.”
–
–
Back in the chapel, Arthur stared Lancelot down with a cautious, wary frown on his face.
“So? What is this emergency that you cannot discuss in front of the other nobles? Out with it.”
He seemed nervous, the Crown Prince noted. Lancelot nodded at Arthur, straightening his back as he began to speak.
“Sire. I found Lord Bayard’s… corpse.”
…What?
Arthur had anticipated for all kinds of nasty problems to come out of Lancelot’s mouth – but that one had not crossed his mind for a second. The Crown Prince was stunned into silence, baffled at the news.
No way. You’re joking.
But Lancelot’s expression left no room for jokes. He was serious.
“I was on patrol this morning, sire. There was a corpse in the woods, lying not more than a mile from here, that eerily resembles our Mercian neighbour.”
“It can’t be,” Arthur muttered.
“I’m afraid that it is. I know Bayard very well. There was no mistaking it-”
But Arthur cut him off, shaking his head powerfully.
“No- I mean it’s not possible! Lancelot, I saw Bayard this morning – he’s about to fight in the tournament. It can’t be him.”
“Sire, Bayard has a scar on the back of his neck from a training accident. The mark is identical. There is no mistaking it.”
The Crown Prince could feel the hairs in the back of his neck rise up as a cold, ominous chill ran down his spine. A strange sense of dread began to rise in his stomach.
Something was wrong.
Something was very wrong.
When he spoke, his voice was no more than a whisper.
“But… if that is Bayard… then… who…?”
–
–
Elyan marched into the arena under a thunderous, roaring applause. It didn’t come from the nobility. It came from the rows of commoners on the side-lines. There were more of them every day, piling into the stands to see Gawain. And they became louder with every fight.
The dark-haired swordsman liked it. The roaring cheers as he fought, the feeling of a massive audience witnessing his every move – It was exhilarating. Nothing motivated Elyan more than the idea of fighting in the arena.
He loved it.
And so did Bayard. Elyan had known it from the moment that he’d first laid eyes on him, when he had barely been more than a child. That same look in his eye. They were kindred spirits, living for the thrill of combat more than anything. Elyan had challenged him to a duel on their first meeting. He had thoroughly gotten his hind quarters kicked in response. And the two of them had been friends ever since.
Elyan had never beaten him. Not once.
Not until today.
…Watcher, huh?
In a fluent motion, he unsheathed his weapon. His heart began to beat wildly in his chest as the adrenaline surged through his body. In a loud, confident voice, Elyan yelled at the person in front of him.
“Bayard! Ready for a rematch?!”
“Bayard…?”
–
–
“How is that possible?” the Crown Prince whispered. “If that is Bayard… then who…?”
“I don’t know,” Lancelot replied nervously. “But there was no mistaking it, sire. I made sure of it. Down to the scars on his neck.”
You are absolutely certain?”
“Yes.”
The feeling of dread worsened. Something was very wrong.
“Then who is the man in the ring with Elyan right now?”
“I don’t know that either, sire.”
This was impossible. Arthur trusted Lancelot’s words – the man was incredibly insightful and perceptive. He knew that his second-in-command wasn’t lying. If he said that the corpse was Bayard’s, then that corpse was Bayard’s. But that made the situation even more confusing.
He could not be in two places at once. It was physically impossible.
Except for one thing.
Magic.
“Arthur, shall I alert the King?”
“No,” Arthur replied, shaking his head. “This reeks of sorcery. And we don’t know what kind of magic this is. Announcing it to the public will only cause a panic. People will notice if the King leaves. For now, the fewer people that know about it, the better.”
“Yes, sire.”
As soon as the word “magic” crossed Arthur’s mind, his head had begun to fill itself with disturbing possibilities. He shuddered at each and every one of them, some being even worse than others. He could feel his stomach twisting into a knot.
Magic. It’s always bloody magic, isn’t it?
But he was the Crown Prince. And this was his tournament. His responsibility. He had to take control of the situation, and eliminate the threat before something terrible happened.
And he had to do it fast.
“We need to get to the bottom of this quickly,” Arthur spoke, his voice strict and commanding. “Lancelot, what did you do with the body?”
“I retrieved it, sire. It is waiting on a cart outside the walls, underneath a shroud.”
“Good. Bring it into the crypt. If that really is Bayard, then his remains deserve to be treated with respect.”
“Yes, sire. What will you do?”
Arthur glanced over at the door, grabbing the hilt of his sword.
“I’m going to stop that match.”
–
–
But the Prince came too late.
The crowd gasped in shock as Bayard of Mercia overpowered his opponent. It was so fast and violent that the force of it knocked Elyan off-balance – and his foe immediately made use of it. Bayard raked his weapon across Elyan’s chest in a wild, almost savage cleaving motion. If not for his armour, the attack would have cut him clean in half. And it was more than the thin rapier could handle. The blade broke. It snapped off at the end, partially shattering as bits of metal scattered through the arena. They fell to the ground paired with the sound of confused, shocked mutterings.
Bayard wasn’t fighting by the rules.
That wasn’t like him.
And he didn’t stop there. Bayard slammed into Elyan before he could recover. ramming into him with his full weight. It was a brutish move, the force of it sending him hurling backwards. Hard.
Too hard. Elyan was knocked all the way to the edge of the arena – and collided with the wall behind him. A sickening crack resounded throughout the clearing as his back slammed into the heavy stonework.
That crack was followed by silence. Elyan slumped down, limp. His head rolled forwards as the sword clattered out of his hands.
The dark-haired swordsman did not get back up.
“Elyan!”
Gawain moved on instinct. Everything else in the arena faded away as he sprinted towards his fallen friend, an ice cold fear clasping around his heart.
–
Up on the balcony, Morgana watched the scene in front of her in complete shock. She couldn’t move. It felt as if she was paralyzed. From the moment that Bayard had walked into the arena, her body had become completely immobile as her eyes locked onto the person in front of her.
No.
Not a person.
She could feel it.
It radiated off of the creature in front of her in waves. A vile, tainted, malefic source of energy, its tendrils reaching out to everything in range. People. Objects. Insects. Everything. Ruthless, destructive, violent – and so bone-chillingly cold that it took her breath away. The budding witch had never felt something this dark before. All the hairs in the back of her neck rose up as she could feel it creeping closer – and yet Morgana couldn’t look away. She couldn’t tear her eyes off the darkness in front of her.
Something about it felt almost…
Magnetic-
It felt as if she had lost consciousness. Morgana could feel her senses swimming their way back up, slowly resurfacing from a pitch-black void. The world around her had turned into a blur. She was vaguely aware of someone holding her. A dark shape, looming over her and casting a shadow over her form as their fingers dug into her arms. Hard.
But Morgana barely felt it. She felt strangely disconnected from her own body, only vaguely making out the words that drifted towards her through the mire.
“…back. Come back.”
Another word. Loud. Authoritative. Spoken directly to her mind.
Familiar.
Priestess.
“Morgana.”
At the sound of Cenred’s voice, the world around her finally came back into focus. Her mind cleared, breaking free of the darkness in front of her. Her entire body was shaking. Morgana found herself mere inches away from Cenred. She hadn’t even noticed him reach her. He was still holding her, his body positioned in such a way that it shielded her from view. She could hear his voice speak to her again, willing her to listen.
Focus. Do not let it take hold.
Take hold?
Shaking and confused, the budding witch took a step backwards. Her heart hammered painfully in her chest, and she could feel drops of cold sweat starting to form on her back. Another chill ran down her spine as she looked at the creature down in the arena, still feeling its cold presence reaching out for her. Reaching out for all of them. When Morgana spoke, her voice was nothing but a hoarse whisper.
“W…what… is that?”
Cenred didn’t answer out loud. He never did. He did not need to. She could hear his thoughts in her head, filling her mind and drowning out all other voices. But this time, his answer came paired with an emotion. One that made her feel paralyzed for the second time in a row.
That…
Fear.
Cenred was afraid.
That is a very big problem.
–
–
“Watcher guide you, my friend. You deserved better.”
Tales of Camelot 
Gah what happened to Sarah!? 😦 What’s strange is that Sarah is sitting in the stands with Marcus, which means they let her go. Which is great but has she become a mole for Cenred? Will she have to silently feed information to them? But if yes, what upperhand does he have on her apart from her life? I don’t think he would’ve managed to convince Sarah that he wasn’t conspiring with Richard. Or if he tried, Sarah wouldn’t believe him. Much too sharp that one.
Richard knows who Cenred is? Ahh what a political mess on all sides. Are Morgause and Cenred mercenaries or are they on someone’s side? Is the alliance Cenred offered to Morgana personal, or is it tied to Richard? Or is it tied to Morgause? Is Cenred’s power connected to Morgause? Same school? Yet Morgana could sense his but not Morgause’s so either he’s very powerful, or it’s a different branch of magic that is more lethal, but easily detectable, unlike Morgause’s. So many variables on this guy. I’m going to put him aside so my brains don’t explode.
Hah! Mercury looks like a mime for some reason! Ooh I’m loving the accessories everyone is wearing 😮 ! Wow so much detail in dressing everyone up! Mithian looks incredibly sad. >.> Is she feeling lonely? Arthur must be super busy after all. Or idk so many reasons for her to be unhappy.
Gawain has to fight that thing in the finals. Oh dear. Will Morrie still go with her plans of escaping or will she stay back and help him? Will monster guy’s true nature be revealed and rile up the crowd or will it be defeated? If it does go south, I imagine Camelot is going to be extra vigilant and hateful towards magic. That means Morrie staying behind is going to be really dangerous for her.
Btw my so says Elyan looks like your traditional Roman aristocrat. Idk why he’s peeking over my screen for.
Man I love your picture effects. They’re so disorienting and perfect for Morrie getting overwhelmed/attacked scene.
Ok so Bog boy came out of Bayard’s real corpse. Which means fake Bayard is still in the ring and being controlled by Bog boy? So Bog boy has remote control of fake Bayard while moving around doing his own thing. Woah. That is hella powerful. Wait so, Bog boy duplicated the bodies? If Rupert was inside bayard, then whose body is the one in the ring? Or in the last picture, are we actually looking at a spectre? So Spectre bog boy can control his and Bayard’s body at the same time? Sorry I’m trying to make sense of it. haha!
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Who knows? Perhaps they merely flirted a bit and called it even… yeah, I don’t believe that one, either. 😂 I will say that jumping down from the tower leads to a fall down a cliff, and it takes a short walk to get from there to where Sarah was.
He is. He’s met Cenred before, when they were making an alliance between Nemeth, Cornwall and Essetir and he told Morgause and a hooded figure to report back to their kings. Turns out that hooded figure -was- the king. Oooh, those are good questions. I can’t answer them now because of spoilers, but you’ll find out about most of those pretty soon!
You guys were having a blast during picture taking, lol. Half of the cast is now friends with you all and the other half is bitter enemies. So, y’know, a pretty good score for that time, actually. 😁
That’s a very good question and a good observation on what will happen if Camelot starts hating magic even more. LOL Elyan looks like a roman aristocrat? Hold on that’s hilarious lemme tell ‘im…
Elyan: “I do NOT! Bugger off!”
Yeah, he wasn’t happy with it.
Did he come out of it? Or was it Bog Boy all along? Which one is real, and which one is fake? Are they even really there? Oh wait, Elyan just got the life knocked out of him, so there’s definitely something there. I’ll give you an early hint: illusions are a thing, and they come with a very specific visual effect.
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I barely recognised Sarah with her hair down – she looks like a young girl still. I need her anti-aging secrets, haha. However I don’t think I’ll be going to her for advice on how to actually live long. Gah. I had my heart in my throat the whole time she was listening in on that conversation. This will not end well, even if she may be ok for now. Also, with the little note that “only servants can acquire certain types of information,” I do wonder if she’s spied for Morgana before, whether that was something she’d done out of her own initiaitve or whether Morgana asked her to (clearly, this particular occurrence is the former).
I don’t think this is what Lancelot had in mind when you promised him more screentime, Yimi. Poor baby.
Gnn that exchange between Elyan and Gawain was lovely but I can barely follow it because of this uneasy feeling in the air and my stomach’s up in a knot. I’ll have to come back to ingest that properly. They better have “the Watcher” on their side… Argh, I bet when Gawain learns about Bayard’s fate, all of his confidence will be gone. Glargh. Also, while it’s lovely that commoners are now attending the tournament, but when Gawain gets his bum kicked in the last fight (or worse…. no, you wouldn’t dare *cries*), the kingdom may have an uprising on their hands.
Oh no. Oh no. Zombie Bayard is competing? Against Elyan? Oh no…
…. great, this will cement Arthur’s hate of magic, perfect. *face palm* It was you bofoons and your hatred of magic that caused this mess in the first place. Why didn’t you listen to Gwenny you doofus?! Argh. Nooo. Gawd. I can’t watch.
Oh jeez. Yikes. I’m glad I’m reading this during day time, I would not sleep well. Foof.
Hmm, so Cenred is helping Morgana, doing true on his promise to help her. At first I thought that may be a ploy on his part, but if she can sense his fear, maybe he has jsut shown us his true alliegance. Maybe. I’m hesitant. You could still very well by knee deep in nefarious business and feel afraid, after all.
Oh god…. They need to stake those zombies or something. Glargh.
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Actually, now that I’m marginally calmer (I’m not really), I would like to acknowledge Arthur’s effort to somewhat take Gwen’s advice into account by burying the body. Or attempting to do something close to burying the body. Too bad it’s too late.
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Oooh, yup. Too little, too late. But did he do it because of what Gwen told him, or is there another reason? 🤭
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I mean, to be fair, anti-aging can refer to a multitude of things 🤭 Sarah off-duty with her hair down is a very stark contrast to normal Sarah, yes. And perhaps she has… there are all kinds of ways to obtain information, and Morrie is known to go pretty far to get what she wants.
Hah! Lancelot isn’t complaining. Okay maybe he’s complaining a little bit. Sad puppy eye looks thrown my direction whenever I stop posing him don’t count, though. 😂
Well, seeing how “the Watcher” is me… heh, you can fill that one in yourself. Corrupted Bayard is competing, yes. The question here would be why. A proper zombie apocalypse would just be chomping on the nearest thing available, after all…
The hypocrisy is very real in this one. If they hadn’t done what they did, none of this would have happened, but magic is blamed instead of looking at the actual root of the problem. And that makes it even worse.
Being able to speak to someone’s mind directly is a very powerful ability, so I gave it the drawback of not being able to hide your emotions. I do that in my game, too. But you’re right. You can be knee deep in shady business and still feel scared.
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Sarah, that’s one pretty slice of agate you have dangling in your cleavage, but bullying people into buying you drinks is not pretty. Still can’t read the tower without thinking of The Tower which makes this even more ominous than it already is. Oh Sarah, the word you should be paying attention to in that thought is ‘secret’, aka, none of your beeswax. Also, who says it’s not a meeting between lovers? In those times, two men would have surely had to be very secretive about their trysts. So for that reason and ignoring all logic and dialogue to the contrary, I’m theorising that Cenred and Richard are lovers. In fact, the dialogue actually supports my theory. “You have a peculiar way of treating your allies, Cenred.” (If that’s not a hint to blasphemous buggery, what is?) “… You could have told me who you were.” (Kinky). Yep. Cracked it.
Ah, no. Now we reach Little Leg Lance and I have to turn off the funny, because Bayard is dead and it’s all very sad.
The Tea Party are loving this tournament! Ah… we’re nearly at the end. I wonder if Gawain will roll his way to victory, or whether the tournament will be halted now because everyone is dying at the hands of this freaking terrifying thing that looks like Bayard but is clearly something undead and powerful and awful. Perhaps they *can* sit on the walls! I’m sure the ToC Watcher won’t completely lose her mind at adding thirty more teleporters to various spots around the arena. Go for it! Pack those stands! “Sire. We have a problem.” Only a little one. Barely worth bothering Arthur with, really.
Yay, speaking of male-male trysts, here’s our resident closet dweller again. I’m really starting to get a soft spot for Elyan, look at him choosing which sword to wave around in the open, preparing to go into his one-on-one with his fellow man, even using the forbidden b-word to really signify his intention. The sun is shining down on him and I have a good feeling about this.
And— back in the blender I go and this time you’re really putting it on a higher setting to make sure there are no lumps of me left. Arthur ranting about magic (still, even if he though that Bayard was somehow magical, he’s offering burial rites which is quite something!) and Elyan being thrust against a wall and not in a fun way. You’ve left this outcome open, but the hints at him being a life claimed are quite heavy and I’m gutted.
Is this Morgana having a vision? Those effects are dizzying and I love how you’ve done this, that Cenred becomes the solid, the focus in the scene. And he calls her priestess which is very interesting as I’ve already mentioned to you that I notice she refers to herself as a budding witch and priestesses are not budding witches. What does Cenred know? “That is a very big problem”. Everyone’s drinking from the drama cup today, huh?
This is a mighty fine crypt you have built here, Yimi. I particularly like the broken floor tiles. Bloody hell, those last pictures are eerie. The way the candles snuff out, one by one was the creepiest part for me. Even above the purple fog or horned Rupert materialising from what I assume was the illusion of Bayard’s corpse. So… Spiritual Gunk boy has landed himself in the crypt; what is hoped to be achieved by this endeavour? I assume there was a plan hatched to infiltrate this place somehow. I wonder if he’ll end up reanimating all the corpses of the deceased knights—
Ah crap. Crap and arse. Why does that feel so possible?
No point blending me further. I’m liquid.
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I am seriously tempted to add a random noble called Willfryd Wangshaft in there somewhere as an easter egg. Luckily this tower is not a prison and/or asylum for the mentally insane, but just a storage area that’s gone largely unused. Still has its share of creepy event potential, though. Maybe next arc. Hahaha, oh gods, I cannot unsee that twist on their conversation now 😂
Little Leg Lance is having a great time with his extra screen appearances. I’m sure he’s not having seconds thoughts about saving my life at the tea party at all.
We are! There’s about… 5 chapters left, give or take. Gawain has been rolling exceptionally well all arc. I don’t think he’s had a single bad roll, other than getting mauled by Aggro’s guards. Ha, you’re right – I will absolutely lose my mind if I have to pose even more sims in that damn arena. I placed everyone, posed them, tweaked the ones that were angled wrong and put the two fighters in the middle – aaaaaaand then realized that only one of them was holding a sword. Giving the other one too meant going into CAS and having everything reset. By that point I was so done with it all that I just left it like that. 😂
Hehehe. I see you’re reading this chapter in a very specific way 😏
She’s definitely being shown something, and entirely involuntarily. Thank you! I was in doubt on how to do them for a while but the seeing-double colour effects work pretty well. I think I’ll keep ‘em. 😄
Why, thank you. The person who gifted the pack to me deserves all the love for that one, especially for the broken tiles. 😘 And interesting train of thought. A crypt full of dead knights and royalty can hold so many secrets once magic and undead creatures become involved…
You guys have been getting blended for a while, now. I do like myself some good fruit smoothies. If it’s any consolation, there’s still at least one “up” chapter coming among all the downward-plummeting ones.
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It’s alright, Sarah, just punch the Crown Prick of Nemeth in the face and then Cenred too, it’s all good : P Was that Lance who spotted the body? Woahh, one second, if Arthur already saw Bayard in the morning, has he been replaced? Kinda similar to the changeling thing? Oh god he looks creepy as hell and we haven’t seen him wholly in the screenshots…Oh God Elyan…Gawain ought to stay back for his own good, poor guy…
So the purple mist stuff is posessing other dead bodies as well… I feel like this is going to be a huge problem. They can just keep killing possessed people and they’ll just reanimate anyway by the looks of things.
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Sassy Sarah punching everyone today. That was indeed Lancelot that found the body, yes.
I’ve noticed that with some screenshots, only showing parts of it and leaving the rest to the imagination makes it much scarier. Gawain really should stay back for his own good – but staying out of trouble is something that he has never been particularly good at.
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Things have become seriously bad and I don’t know what’s going on – but poor Arthur trying to lead and handle it… His instinct about not trusting his father (who should be the leader) enough to tell him isn’t wrong, but this just looks like a mess. I hope many others aren’t hurt. 😦 Morgana is super lucky Cenred was around to center her.
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Arthur is getting shoved into the leader role despite having no idea what’s going on and he’s trying so hard, the poor guy. A mess is about right, and it’s one that will get worse before it gets better. As I’m pretty sure you’ve read already, as you seem to be at the end of the arc, haha.
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