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The Priest's Inn: 'Tis a splendid place on the road from here to there, a place with an open-beam ceiling and predictably large, dark fireplace someone could roast a very small ox or an extremely dedicated boar in. As far as alehouses or inns go, the freehouse owes its fame to its antiquity and not much more than that. A few scarred wooden tables in the common room likewise inform the general visitor the place serves as a court, which makes the presence of a Knightly Spit all the more intriguing. What is a Knightly Spit?
The great spit placed horizontally outside where various meats from animals surrendered as booty are roasted and turned over to the community and travelers when the circuit court passes through. Twice a year, and not tonight, such entertainment passes as monumental. A few men are in residence, not a wench to be seen, though the barkeep surely promises they'll be out soon. Doing their fieldwork, understand, and then coppers and queen's coin at the ready, please.
*
There's all of six rooms together, and the one room in question that Taliesin manages to secure is a squat, smoky thing half-full of barrels and what passes as a straw pallet — a mattress — big enough for two men. At least it's private.
*
Agravaine takes it all off. Well, not all the clothes, but all the armor, certainly. There's just no way around it. He can't squat on the floor and fiddle with shards if he's all clangy and such, so, he's in a lightweight, quilted tunic, some loose leggings, and a pair of leather shoes with long, pointy tips. Its definitely more ofa dressed-down look. Then, he can be properly bendy while they try to sort it all out. "Ok…so…these are the shards." And whoever has a piece, he sets out a little cloth so that they can look at them all together. "And now we need to make a key. A key to what…I wonder."
*
"A key to power…" murmurs Ser Bercilak, the Green Knight. He doesn't appear to be paying much attention to what is going on, but rather has sunk into a depressive state.
He sits by himself in the corner — knees drawn up, elbows resting upon them, helm and axe at his feet — staring with emerald eyes at the space between his open hands.
"What else is there? When 'tis gone…"
*
Sir Gareth perches on the barrels, balancing almost effortlessly on the balls of his feet. It keeps him out of the way, and secures a good vantage point as he watches. "Perhaps the lock will be more obvious once we have the key," he suggests. He eyes the Green Knight, but has no words of comfort or wisdom to offer him.
*
With all of his long legs and long body, broad shoulders and personality to boot, Taliesin also secures his place on the straw pallet. It's clear that if the Master Bardd wanted to sleep, he'd need to bend knees for how his boots would hang over the end if he lay on it lengthwise. He instead reclines, back to the wall, plucking a soft and idle tune upon his mandolin. The strings, fixed and calibrated to maximum harmony, allow him to indulge in an underlayering of ambience to the scene. It's nothing fancy, nothing distracting — simply mellow.
The blood came mostly out of his tunic. Mostly. If one squints hard enough, they can see the hastily-stitched slice in the fabric sewn shut with care despite the speed. Despite the safety of the room, the Pencerdd can't shake the careworn from his expression and air.
"A key goes to a door…or a chest. A lock," he offers up quietly, eyes shifting from Agravaine, to Sir Gareth, and finally to land upon the Green Knight. "Did you wrap up your hand, dandy?" He's speaking to Ser Bercilak in particular. The chording shifts to a minor key.
*
Agravaine looks over at the Green Knight. "What has you…all…in turmoil? If anyone ought to be depressed it should be…well, all of us, probably. Come forth, brother…there's nothing we can do but move forwards." He picks up a bit of straw and throws it at the bummed one.
*
Bercilak looks up at his companions.
"The lake about the isle was cruelly enchanted. When I fell in… it sapped the magic of the Wood from me. Now… the Woods are silent, and I…"
He stops speaking, and takes a breath. "The Wood endures, and so must its champion. Thou didst mention the key… how shall it be put together?"
To the Bardd he remarks: "Mine hand is well enough. How is thine head?"
*
"Perhaps it will return, in time," Gareth suggests. "This is but the winter of your discontent, and spring will bring your power back."
*
Taliesin's attention lingers upon the Greek Knight as he listens, frowning faintly. There's a solution to that…somehow…but it's not through slitting palms and blood spilt in the name of feckless gods.
"Mine head is perfectly fine, thank you. No damage done. A little sore, but…" and he rolls the shoulder before strumming the string once more, a more brilliant chord rippling out into the room that sounds of sunlight glinting from water; "…no lasting damage done. Agravaine is right, however. Moping is for lackeys and we, gentlemen, are anything but." A sprightly run of notes pausing at a high pitch.
"A key opens a door. Opens a lock. A secret passageway from a castle. Agravaine, can you see any seams in the shards? Places where planes might lay flat against one another and slide into place?" He cranes his head, looking at the shards on the square of cloth.
*
Four are the shards, four pieces worth nothing particularly great on the outset.
One is familiar, the polished rosewood bowl so deep a blooded auburn it practically glows cerise. Its lustruous finish gives away little of its value. A pretty thing, to be sure.
A bowl of some striated mineral flashing a finish like oil carries the faintest traces of metal chasing around the edges, scalloped curves traced something a bit like the stepped inlay of a shell.
The third might be made of gold, a spindle surmounted by a palm-sized wedge of shining metal intricately chased by elaborate knotwork in fine relief. Round settings for three stones hold carnelian, opal, and agate in a squared-off triangle.
The fourth shard is no shard at all, but a chunk of stone worked into a ring spun likewise.
*
Agravaine sighs, "They will not fit together at all. But…its…you know, its probably something like…fire in this bowl…the tears of a whining knight in this bowl…blood of a virgin, aka Gareth, on this stone…"
*
FOr some reason the mental image of a cat with bristling fur is appropriate as Gareth is spoken of by Agravaine, and he jumps off the barrel to approach the shards. "Here," he says, reaching for the shards. If not stopped, he'll try arranging them, one bowl inverted and placed atop the other bowl. Inside them vertically is the spindle, and between the two bowls is the stone ring.
*
ROLL: Agravaine +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 93
*
For nary a moment, Sir Agravaine disappears completely from sight. Not a trace of the man remains, though he reappears precisely where he was fiddling with pieces this way and that. But it may be hard to miss his complete erasure from the private room.
Then Sir Gareth takes his turn at building with magical pieces, two peculiar things transpire. The spindled pin bursts into cheerful flames that do not burn his hands, shimmering copper and amber to their core, erupting from the gems individually and spreading over the long metal pinion used to balance the rosewood bowl at the top. Such a luminous holocaust frankly hurts Taliesin's sensitive nerves, and even those of Sir Bercilak, faded though his sensitivity to anything may well be.
Too late, then, to do much for the middle ring drops down atop the triangular wedge alight in that blazing fire. The crystal captures the ambient light melting through the surface, concentrating the radiance into several beams turned ultraviolet to the unfortunate bard who insisted on turning his Sight upon the shards. All at once they resonate in a low, minor key requiem vibrating the bones and causing dust to shake off the ceiling and the abandoned barrels in yon corner. Every pulsating strobe of the star where the ring was darkens the body of the shards, and further shocks sight, even if someone throws an arm up or shuts their eyes. It's like having Agravaine flicking on and off the signal light of the great Pharos lighthouse in their collective faces. 'Bright' doesn't even begin to describe it.
One ear-splitting moment of silence later, a midnight-black chalice sits facedown where the assembled pieces were.
*
The snerk is unable to be withheld on the Pencerdd's part for the proposed usage of each shard.
"Nonsense, good Knight. Sir Gareth has had the lion's share of the fun with each of our stays…have you not, sir?" A friendly tease on his part accented by the light delivery implies utter innocence on Taliesin's part. The quiet tune emerging from the mandolin continues on, calming background noise for their efforts.
In this moment, when Gareth rearranges the shards in their various shapes and states, the music slows noticeably. The Master Bardd sits taller again, blinking the Sight over his irises to See what comes of such an endeavor. The result:
Afterimages seared into his retinas with a near-physical punch from the explosion of Mystical light. "GAH! Seven hells and feckless sons of succubi, GODS DAMMIT!!!" The mandolin makes an unseen clunking sound, the strings complaining, as Taliesin slumps to one side on the cot, hands clapped over his eyes. "WHY."
It feels like someone took a pocked blade's edge over every major nerve cluster in his body and hoo-boy, that vice about his temples. Good times.
*
Agravaine is moved…and not moved, and yet when he returns from having vanished, he seems to recognize that something happened to him. "A key…" He knits his brows, blinded by the light too, especially being so close. "You win, Gareth. The shards liked you far better than I." He looks at his hands, to make sure he can see them. All he can see right now are giant, light spots, like he looked into the sun.
*
This one connects to that one, and this here, and that one there, thinks Gareth as he tries arranging the items. He tenses and almost drops them when the pin catches fire, but amazingly he's not burned. He does have to squint to protect his sensitive eyes, but that's far too little when the shards flare into light, and he bowls over backwards, hands flying up to coer his eyes. "Christ almighty!" he cries out. "What…what happened?" he asks, not able to see yet.
*
The black, upside-down cup continues to sit innocently on the surface where Sir Gareth left it. It emanates that ultraviolet sheen, all but humming with power that even the blinded can likely detect at some distance. It isn't leaking any liquid, at least, and the fire previously witnessed is probably transmuted into that darker glow.
*
Taliesin muffles his more creative curses behind his palms — wouldn't want to tarnish fairly-innocent minds, after all — until he can gain a sense of his bearings through the thrum he can detect eminating from the cup. The mandolin clonks hollowly against the frame of the cot once more as he levers his way to sitting upright.
"Yaldson of Ygraine, what — gods-dammit," he mutters and knuckles at his eyes, wincing. Every movement prickles like restless legs, but it serves to clear his vision enough to find that…
"By the Bright Lady's name, is that…?" It's likely that none of them have ever heard the brashly-spoken Master Bardd speak in such hushed reverence. Wincing, he unslings his instrument from across his body, lays it carefully on the cot, and then rises. Once near to the cup, he kneels and examines it. It's still so very bright to look upon and sparkles hover in his vision, but the Pencerdd strives to look at it from all angles. Eventually, he leans away, still on one knee, and looks at everyone in turn.
"Gentlemen, this is no chalice from the palace. This…is the Grail." His gaze flicks back to the black cup and he frowns. "Though not in the color I would have expected."
*
Gareth frowns at the chalice, blinking his eyes to try to clear them. "I'm not imagining that, then?" he says. "It actually is…black?" He looks at it, slowly letting it come into focus. "It's possible that I assembled it wrong. Maybe someone else should have done it." He pours a little water into it and lifts it. "Well, let's see if the brew is true," he says before taking a small sip.
*
Ser Bercilak lifts up his head, his eyes alight. "The… Grail? Art thou sure? The very Grail of legend?" He gets up from where he sits and walks toward it, pushing past one or two companions along the way.
"What we could do with such a relic…" he breathes, staring.
*
Hesitantly, Gareth lifts the chalice, glances around at the others briefly, and then takes a sip from the water he added. For a second he sits there, and then his eyes roll back, and he slumps backwards against the barrels, the chalice dropping lightly in his lap.
*
Agravaine seems, almost, to /fear/ the object before them. If the grail is real…then…everything else…what's he seeking? He needs to build a machine…save his people…yes. He's the king. He frowns and scoots back, letting Ser Bercilak past him very willingly. He seems distant and caught in a strange state, between. Upon Gareth falling over, he lets out a gasp, "its cursed!"
*
Bercilak reaches for the chalice as Ser Gareth falls over, spilling just a little of the liquid on his hands. He all but ignores the ailing knight at his feet, so fixated is he upon the Grail.
"Aye, he was unworthy. I hear thee…" he whispers, although not to anyone in the room. Anyone visible. "I hear thee… a Bargain was struck. Wilt thou honour thy part, if I were to honour mine…?"
Ser Bercilak then quickly raises the cup to his lips and drinks.
*
ROLL: Bercilak +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 47
*
With Gareth reaching for and taking the inverted Grail from its place, Taliesin retreats a proper distance. He's wary of Mystical feedback now from the object; one hand near to his waist forms an unconscious mudra of protection, set at a moment's notice to flick into play and hopefully curtain his Sight and person from another flash.
"Gareth, I don't think — " he begins, but far too late. The slackening of the Knight's body freezes him in shock and the whites of his eyes show. "You IDIOT!" He looks to Agravaine quickly and gives a half-hearted nod, his brain still fizzling with the residual effects of being near-blinded.
As the Pencerdd goes to stride over, it's clear that the Green Knight has beaten him to retrieving the black chalice. He's in time to hear the low murmur and flashes teeth. Around him, his aura swirls up and crackles in shock.
"No! Not you! Don't even think — " His scarred hand reached out to wrap around the stem of the chalice and WHAM!!!
With all the rude force of an eldritch bullrushing, his Astral form is punted from his body and sent flying wibbly-wobbly through the gossamer veil between this reality and…
His inner ear hates him by the time he realizes where he's been deposited and hovers clutching at his sternum. Wait, the Sanctum?! NO!!! Looking down at himself in brilliantly-rendered translucent form, the Master Bardd is Sorcerer Supreme, in battle-leathers and crimson Cloak and…oh gods. THE GRAIL.
*
To everyone else in the alehouse room, Taliesin just fell over like Sir Gareth.
*
Baron Bercilak smiles.
For a moment, just a moment, there is no Ser Bercilak there; it is Karl Bercilak, holding the Black Grail, and licking his lips. Reality twists again, to 'restore' him to his Arthurian alter-ego, and he sways on his feet.
He sits down on the floor, Grail in hand, looking exhausted.
"I… seem to have fared better than these other two." He frowns. "I wonder why…" and where is my magic?!
*
Meanwhile…
New York spirals and swirls around Greenwich Village in all its glory. Confounded wards fuzzily rise about the translucent sorcerer hovering within their midst, sweeping in damselfly brushes across his astral body until satisfied of his identity. Then they fall back, leaving dusty silver moth-trails. Outside, the night wears into dark velvet, a worn cape drawn around the brick buildings facing the Victorian mansion.
*
Agravaine stands up, slowly. Time. He needs time. Time to figure out what this black grail does. "Release it, Bercilak. You need to stop whatever you are trying to do and remember who you really are…a knight of the /forest/, not of demons and darkness, and certainly not one who drinks out of cursed black cups!" He moves to Tal, and Gareth, one by one, making sure they are alive, but he keeps a steady eye on the Green Knight.
*
The Master Bardd doesn't move from where he collapsed like a marionette cut of strings. He breathes, barely, on the same terms with his consciousness as Gareth: departed of it.
The wards are given a fleeting reply as to who he is, tersely, and astral-Strange grits his teeth. "Stupid son of a bitch," he snarls — at whom? His own self is clearly an option for the amount of frustration coursing through his veins. Compass-north points to his true body back in Central Park. It matters not how much time has passed, he needs to get back to it here. Left alone, it invites tampering, even if having lay there for only seconds.
Swish, the Astral plane folds upon itself and he appears above the slack-limbed Sorcerous body he calls home. Back inside, a gasp of shock for psyches realigned and a cough, and Strange gets his elbows beneath him. The next step, once he finds his footing, is to clearly try to get back to Agravaine — Agravaine? And Karl, that…dandy who is still courting chaos!
*
That hammy courting chaos!
*
Agravaine grabs his shield, moves forwards, and as long as Bercilak does not resist him too greatly, he bats the black grail out of his lap, and then covers it with the metal object. "Don't /touch it/…until we figure out what its /doing/." He fusses.