Arthur skidded to a halt, narrowly avoiding being trampled by his pursuers. He had grown accustomed to Morgan's frequent displays of elemental power, but the sudden burst of light and energy that struck the figure in the water left him momentarily stunned.
"What was that?" Mark reached the rest of them, a little behind the others. "It was like a lightning storm, but the air is clear."
Arthur ignored him. If the King of Gwynedd still didn't understand the power of a cultivator, he wasn't going to waste his breath right now trying to re-educate him. The second monster he'd been running to distract had vanished towards the bottom of the lake. It was too much to hope his wizard had permanently put it out of action, but it had certainly dropped down the priority order right now.
He now just had two pressing problems.
Firstly, Morgan was adrift in that lake. He'd caught sight of her sling-shotting in the opposite direction to Lancelot and a terrifying being the size of one of Tintagel's towers.
Oh, and that led nicely into the second issue. Lancelot was one-on-oneing a Kraken on the land.
Arthur turned on a sixpence and started to run back to where he could see Morgan slowly sinking into the depths of the water. There was nothing he could do. Even reaching towards the water caused him to experience overwhelming pain. There was no way he could dive in there after her.
Get on with it, you fucking wet wipe.
Arthur looked down at the sword left on the water's edge as Morgan had been pinged into the lake. With only a minor hesitation, he bent down to pick it up. He was pleased not to be turned into a pillar of flame on this occasion.
Owain was at his side. "Figure out how to get her onto dry land, and we'll help your man with that one." With a roar, the King of Gwent raised his battle axe above his head and charged towards the Kraken, who was obviously disorientated by being out of the water so suddenly. He was followed - with various degrees of enthusiasm and brio - by Burford, Volka and Mark.
"Any ideas?" Another man might have felt embarrassed to seek advice from a sword. Another time, he might.
Give that fucker on land a nice quick fry, and then toss me at the wizard.
Arthur paused. "Wouldn't you be more use against the monster?"
The sword swivelled in his hand. I'm her sword. I'll give you guys a leg up against that bastard, for old time's sake, but I'm not letting her freeze to death. Not on my watch.
"Fair enough. How do I -" he raised the sword towards the creature that had righted itself and was finally fighting back against Lancelot. The barbarian had wasted no time of his advantage and had been slicing swathes off the beast. Worryingly, it didn't seem to be making as much impact on it as might have been hoped.
A blast of white-hot energy burst from the Drynwyn's tip to envelop the Kraken. Lancelot leapt backwards and out of the way of the fire and landed gracefully on his feet, sword raised to resume his attack.
Few more seconds, then yeet me at her. Make sure you get me close; I need to warm her up.
The flame's intensity increased even higher, with the monster shrieking outrageously as its skin crusted, burst and shrivelled. Three. Two. One. And toss me.
Arthur took careful aim and threw Drynwyn down into the water and towards Morgan's sinking body. He watched it for a moment and then went to join the attack on the Kraken.
"I hope you know what you're doing," he thought to the sword. "We need her back."
*
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I'm so fucking over losing consciousness.
During my life, I've spent more time waking up in unfamiliar places with questionable liquids around me than I'd like to think. However, since my rebirth, my passing-out quotient seems to have gone through the roof.
Are you back in the land of the living, my dear?
I wasn't sure. From my memory, I'd gone all Qi-exhaustion (again) and fell into something like liquid nitrogen while simultaneously acting as some sort of lightning conductor.
My skin burned, my insides throbbed, and my head was splitting. It was Tuesday on the beach at Ayia Napa all over again.
"Mate, if you could scare up some S Club Seven, I'd be living my best life."
Excuse me, my dear?
"Don't worry about it. I assume I'm moments from death?"
To be honest, my dear, I have no idea how you are still alive. I'm theorising that your tempering with the Widow Weed has done something appalling to your constitution. You're really becoming quite a remarkable specimen.
Sure, I'm doing fuck-all here, I guess.
Considering the substance I was suspended in, I realised I was in an unusually warm bubble.
"That you, Drynwyn?
Who else do you think it would fucking be? Ain't like Merlin was going to piss on you to keep you warm.
I opened my eyes and then closed them again quickly. It hurt. "I'm in the lake?"
Indeed. Someone appears to have neglected their reading on equal and opposite reactions. If you pull something that heavy out of the water, you better believe you will be dragged back the other way.
"Awesome. Is there any chance we can spare the lesson on Newtonian physics until I'm back on dry land? Just so I can pay proper attention, you understand." A thought hit me. "Where's the Kraken?"
I think you have put it into a nice little slumber. Well, the one that was about to attack Arthur, at any rate. However, I would recommend that we quickly introduce ourselves to Lancelot's confrontation.
I reached out with the pathetic amount of Qi that I'd recovered whilst unconscious and was alarmed at what a crappy state Lancelot's lifeforce seemed to be in.
"Fucking hell, this is a shit show. Which was is up?"
I groped around, grabbing hold of Drynwyn's handle as I tried to orientate myself. I kicked my legs - despite the bubble of warm air, the cold bit into me like acid - and started to move toward the surface. Then, having an idea, I pointed the sword downwards. "Give me what you've got, big guy."
An explosion of heat beneath me blasted me upwards. In seconds, I was breaching the waves.
*
Lancelot spat a mouthful of blood out and jumped back into the fray.
He knew he only had a few more seconds before the damage his body had taken caught up with his brain. His arms were moving in pure instinct, and his footwork was just a stumbling disaster.
His mother would not be pleased. He guessed he'd be seeing her soon.
On the plus side, since a stray tentacle had taken out his eyes, he wasn't finding looking at the thing that much hassle anymore. It wasn't like he needed to see to hit the fucking thing.
He buried his sword up to the hilt and was gratified by the bloodcurdling scream that it caused. Since pretty hair's sword had bathed the monster in flame, its skin was much more responsive to damage.
And then he was back in the air again, a looping tentacle battering him away from his weapon. That was probably it, he thought. He'd given it a good go and was pleased with how he had conducted himself. He hoped his people would have a suitable song to commemorate his fall.
Then, a warm bath of healing hit, and everything reset.
Lancelot spared a moment to look towards the lake to witness the unusual sight of Morgan flying ten feet into the air, her sword spewing out fire beneath her. She was pointing towards him and yelling something. Lancelot did not always understand the words pretty hair used, but he was on board with the general gist of her sentiment on this occasion. He would indeed 'kill that motherfucker."
*
It took all of our combined efforts the rest of the afternoon to finally drop the beached Kraken. As I had suspected, Volka was the first of us to be dropped. One of the monster's mouths bit him in two when I concentrated elsewhere. I hadn't really got enough headspace to care either way.
I was a bit more sad when Burford lost first an arm and then a leg. I'd manage to cauterise the first, but I just didn't have enough Qi to address the second. He'd bled out before Owain had been able to pull him clear.
Arthur probably got the official 'kill' listing.
We'd basically chopped, burned and speared the thing into so much sashimi, but it was still capable of sending Mark flying into a tree with a crunch. In response, Arthur took a running jump and piled his spear through its last remaining eye. I shoved on the end of it with the thinnest fucking whisp of
It dropped to the ground, and we followed it, gasping and groaning. I didn't think anyone still alive was carrying an injury that needed my urgent attention, but there wouldn't have been much I could have done about it anyway.
I half-heartedly threw out a couple of Elixirs of Wellness just in case.
We'd lost two of our warriors, the rest of us were, if not circling the drain, then at the very least squaring the sewer.
And we were still on the wrong fucking side of the lake.
Well done, my dear. Great effort. One down, two to go!
Fuck off, Big M.