Guinevere and I kept up our routine for the next week. I was nowhere closer to being able to beat her in a swordfight but I did have much better understanding of how to use a sword. Our actual goal of being able to trust each other was still just as much out of reach as me being able to beat Guinevere in a fight with no abilities.
Side stepping Guinevere she whirled around me. Our feet stepped in and out of an unheard rhythm as we invaded each other’s space and retreated. Her blade slashed out at my neck, and I brought up my sword at an angle. While I could block learning to use angles and momentum like Guinevere did, so I used as little force as possible was what I had trouble with.
Guinevere slid one of her legs between mine and hooked my leg with hers yanking it back and sending me onto my back. Her sword was at my throat, slapping the ground she held her hand out and pulled me to my feet.
“Better,” she said.
“Doesn’t feel like it,” I said my heavy training armor clanging together.
“You’ve been making tremendous progress from where you started out from,” Guinevere said. “If you can keep this up you might be able to make it to my skill level in as little as a year, trust me.”
“That’s the problem,” I said with a sigh sitting on a boulder at the edge of the beach. “We still don’t trust each other.”
“Trust takes time,” Guinevere said.
“This might take more than time,” I said. “Think about it, we’re trying to trust each other enough to get out of here but as soon as we do we go back to being on opposite sides.”
“So what?” Guinevere asked. “We just give up and live here forever?”
“We may not have a choice,” I said. “Your training me how to be a better fighter, do you trust me not to use that against you when we’re on opposite sides of a battle.”
Guinevere was silent but finally spoke up again. “What if I could make it so we knew for sure we wouldn’t turn on eachother at the slightest provocation?”
“I’d say I had my doubts,” I said warily.
“You know my father is Merlin,” Guinevere said. “That means he’s responsible for protecting our kingdom from magical threats, as such he’s had to learn magic, real spells not just abilities. As his daughters I’ve had access to his research and grimoires, and I may have learned some spells of my own.”
“And one of these spells will do this?” I guessed.
“Its called blood pact,” Guinevere said. “We write down on piece of paper in our own blood a contract then mix our blood. It will use our own mana to bind us to our oaths.”
“So then what we just promise to never fight eachother?” I asked. “It seems to broad and wasn’t something I thought you would agree too.”
“We need to come to terms first.” Guinevere agreed.
It took us the rest of the day arguing to come up with a list of terms we both agreed upon.
One. I would not initiate any attack on ungifted humanoids or those from her kingdom.
Two. She would assist me in any battle where those same people attacked me first.
Three. We would never tell anyone of what we saw in the other person’s memories or disclose their personal information without the others’ permission.
Four. We would not tell anyone else what we knew about the other’s abilities or gear.
Five. We would not lead the other person into traps or guide other people to their locations.
Six. I wouldn’t go to war with any other country without them first making an attack against me.
There were other things we might have wanted the other to agree on but those were the terms we could both agree on and live with. I ripped a sheet of paper out of Mab, the grimoire didn’t like that as it rustled its papers at me in agitation. Taking my stylus out Guinevere and I picked out palms and wrote out the terms in our blood. I listened to her as she chanted out the spell.
Her blue eyes glowed with inner luminance as the mana passed out of her. Our bloodied hands were bound to each other and there was a dark red light and a searing pain as our blood mingled and the spell took hold. The paper crumpled to ash but the oaths we’d just made were not bound to the paper they were written on. If either of us tried to go back on our world our own mana would rebel against us.
We both looked to the pedestal and at each other warily.
“Are we ready for this?” Guinevere asked.
“No,” I said then let out a sigh. “But lets get it over with anyway.”
Placing our hands into the handprints our minds went black as they were sucked into the dreamscape.
--
We were forced to reexperience the memories we’d already seen again. When Guinevere’s ended, I could feel her trembling as she held herself in place with sheer mental will.
“You are my firstborn,” Guinevere’s father said to her. “Even if you are a girl that comes with responsibilities. Your brother is too young and weak to start his training, so you will have to be strong enough for the both of you.”
“Yes dad,” Guinevere said meekly.
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“I need to test you,” her father said coldly taking her hand and guiding her to dark cave entrance. He spoke the words of a spell and pushed Guinevere.
Screaming she fell. She plummeted downwards but when she hit the ground she landed with no damage to herself.
“Dad!” she screamed up at the circle of light above.
“Find the way out, Guinevere,” Merlin said. “You need to show me your brave.”
The light disappeared and Guinevere was left in darkness.
Before the memory could play out fully Guinevere yanked her hand back and I was ejected from the Dreamscape with her. We both sat down on the steps saying nothing. This was a trial of the soul neither of us wanted or were ready for. Wordlessly we both got up and went back to our respective tasks we used to spend our days.
Mine was making crystals that violently exploded like Grenades and I found that Guinevere’s hobby was gardening. She’d taken silt from the river and stones and made several garden beds. The island was covered with flora and not just mushrooms. There were white berried bushes, some wild gourds and a type of onion. My guess was they were plants the magi had bred that had gone wild.
She spent her days gardening around our hut transplanting plants we could eat and some just for their aesthetic value. I left her to it since I didn’t care how the place looked and she seemed to enjoy it. My work on creating a lighting sword was frustrating. Every time I created a new enchantment, I was sure this one was going to work and every time it failed.
We tried getting past the barrier the next day, but Guinevere yanked her hand back at the same time again. I couldn’t get mad at her; I wasn’t exactly eager to expose my deepest and darkest moments and fears to someone either. We trained in the morning, did our enchanting and gardening and then trained again in the evening. Every day we tried to get past the pedestal but every day we failed to make it past Guinevere’s second memory.
--
Guinevere sat on the pier I’d created into the river. Her feet dangled in the water and I dropped down beside her dipping my toes in and watching the little blind minnows nibble at them. I brought out some sandwiches I’d made out of what little broadleaf I had left, they had some cheese we still had and smoked fish that tasted a lot like salmon.
“Thanks,” Guinevere said taking the food and biting in. She moaned in pleasure at the taste of bread and cheese. We had basically nothing but mushrooms and fish everyday that the taste of anything else was heavenly.
“Don’t mention it,” I said. “Today seemed especially bad for you.”
“Its just… my father…” she stopped unable to put her thoughts to words.
“Fathers are complicated,” I agreed.
We ate in silence for a few more minutes before I broke it deciding to try another approach. “Your father is very powerful and everything. You said he was Exarch rank, why doesn’t he try to become King he seems like he has the power to make a play at it.”
“It would go against every law and tradition in Camelot,” Guinevere said. “Not to mention the binding oaths we all swore to the king.”
“Every noble is required to swear their allegiance to the king if they wish to hold land or any position of authority in Camelot,” Guinevere said. “I myself swore them when I was thirteen.”
“Are these magically binding like the blood pact?” I asked.
“They are similar, but no one likes calling it a spell,” Guinevere said waving her hand side to side. “It exists on the periphery of what the gods will allow.”
“Weren’t you a little young to sign an agreement like that?” I asked. “What’s the age of consent in your country anyway?”
“What do you mean by that?” Guinevere asked.
“What age are people allowed to get married on their own and are considered an adult?” I asked.
“Sixteen is the approved of age but some get married younger though it is frowned upon,” Guinevere said. “Your considered to be an adult when you reach eighteen, but women are still considered to be the wards of their fathers until they get married.”
“Typical medieval stuff,” I said nodding. “Why didn’t your father tell you not to marry the prince then if he could?”
“The King overruled him,” Guinevere said. “There are limits to what the oaths can force anyone to do but a direct order from the king is almost impossible to disobey.”
“Does your head explode or something?” I asked.
“No but its like the weight of a mountain comes down on you and you begin to feel immense pain,” Guinevere said.
“For how much your people seem to hate me for being the Warlord that seems very similar to Dominion,” I said.
“Its not at all the same,” Guinevere retorted. “People have a choice when they swear the oath, when you dominate someone there is no choice.”
“Do they really?” I asked her. “If I put a sword to your throat and tell you to submit or die have, I really presented you with a choice? You technically have one but how many people do you think will choose death or servitude?”
Guinevere didn’t have an answer for that. I stood up dropping the paper my sandwich had been wrapped in. I’d folded it into the shape of a boat and Guinevere watched it float away as I left her sitting there thinking on my words.
---
Helen ducked under the sword, struck her staff coming up between Felrick’s legs as she counter attacked. Felrick swung to the side taking the strike on his inner thigh instead of the groin. Mira and Jamis dueled against each other. Their training was intense, they were bouncing between the twelve dungeons Helen’s mother had under her control. Helen’s husband, Atrel, was now part of their team bringing them up to six members. He was the only member of their group that wasn’t a champion, but he brought a variety of areas of effect attacks to the group that they were lacking.
They were slowly ranking up and gathering better gear as they grinded out the dungeons. The distance between and the respawn rate of the dungeons gave them a few days every week without any dungeons to run. It wasn’t enough time to seek out monsters to slay although those did spawn frequently in their proximity. They kept to noble estates of Helen’s allies training as they paired off and sparred against each other.
Despite how hard they went against each other they knew that fighting other humanoids was not proper preparation for going against a dragon. They were each close to breaking into Veteran Rank from there they could move onto the more powerful dungeons and fight the more powerful monsters and bosses there. One dragon in particular called Red Wyvern’s Lair was one they wanted to run as it would help them to more properly train against a dragon-like opponent.
They collapsed after training. Servants brought them out food and Atrel and Helen went for a walk together. Mira had been more withdrawn since news of Guinevere’s death had come to them. She had held out hope for her friend, but they had all knew it was a longshot. It was a surprise that anyone who had been sucked down into that pit had survived at all.
Jamis stroked the fur of the two bears who now followed him at all times. They were young but were growing fast, he couldn’t take them into their dungeons since they would split the rank points, they earned even further but they helped against the monsters that spawned around them.
“What happens if someone else kills the Hell Dragon first?” Atrel asked Helen as they walked through the estate’s gardens. “Would we still get the artifacts?”
“No,” Helen said. “the gods aren’t allowed to award people for quests that aren’t completed by them. They sometimes use this to subtly interfere with other gods by assigning the same objective for a quest that another champion has to make the other champion fail when someone else completes the objective before them.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be a problem for us,” Atrel said. “No one has been able to threaten Exar’kun since it grew from a hatchling and took to the skies.”
“Is it really that deadly?” Helen asked.
“Yes,” Atrel said. “If we hadn’t started running as soon as we did, we would be ashes on the wind now. His breath is infused with an energy unique to it I’ve never encountered or heard of being encountered anywhere else.”
“Well, his mother was a champion and she still died,” Helen said. “We’ll finish the job with her spawn when we’re ready.”