"Sir!" Francois, one of my advance scouts, calls to me. "We found something up ahead!"
"Is it our target?" I ask, almost dreading the answer. Please, God, I'm not ready for Galahad to see me like this. I don't think I can possibly endure my son being ashamed of me. But, all the same, I'm so glad I got the chance to see him again.
"No. It's a woman!"
A woman? Out here? Dammit, I can't afford the delay of escorting her to the refugee camp! I'll have to keep her with me and my knights. I can't just send her off into the wilderness alone. "Living or dead?"
"Alive, but she's chained to a rock!"
...This is starting to feel familiar.
"Alright, let's investigate."
---
She's a pretty one, I'll give her that. She handles the "damsel chained to a rock" look better than most other damsels in distress I've rescued. Usually, if she's been there for any amount of time, the damsel in question tends to look emaciated, unless the sorcerer imperiling her actually bothered to prevent her from starving. Or defecating herself, I've seen a
lot of damsel chained to rocks by foul magics, and it is
never an attractive or dignified position. Considering that the woman in question is still fairly plump in all the right places, and doesn't smell like shit, I'd have to say she's only been here a day at most.
"Fair lady, what villain has done this to you?" I ask, sticking to the classics. Back in the day, I used that line about as often as I said 'Hello.' Got pretty embarrassing when I started using it as my standard greeting on reflex, though.
"The vile lord of Chaldea, Charles Flynn, has entrapped me here, goodly knight. He bade his foul sorcerers to curse me, that none may move me from this spot, or break these sorcerous chains, until a quest most valiant is performed, and the Blade of Unbinding, the Stone of Sealing, and the Crook of Correction are all found and brought to this place." She sighs woefully, and somewhat overdramatically. "But he has hidden them behind guardians most mighty, laying down obstacles so great that no knight could ever retrieve them, unless they were the great Sir Lancelot!"
"Then fear not, fair lady, for I am that knight!" I call, subtly flexing my shoulders to set my cape fluttering dramatically. Took me more than a decade to get that move down pat, but I have to admit, it was completely worth it. All the same, this is way too formulaic to be anything other than a transparent way to delay me, and one that is making me thoroughly worried about my son associating with the mastermind behind it. Should I really go out of my way to save her? Should I really risk failing my king, just to save one woman?
Yes. Because she's in trouble, and if I turned my back on her, I could hardly call myself
Lancelot. I could hardly call myself a
knight.
"My lady, have you hungered or thirsted since you've been chained to this stone?" I ask. It's an important question to ask. I'm assuming the answer is yes, since she isn't sweaty in the slightest in spite of being directly exposed to the sun, but it's always important to be careful. I still remember the first time I ran into a scenario like this, when I returned with the necessary items to unchain the damsel, only to find she'd died of thirst while I was en route.
"Oh." She seems slightly taken aback. "No, I have not."
"Very well." I press a waterskin into her hands. "Please, keep this, just in case that changes."
"Thank you," she's looking at me in surprise. I don't know why, though. It's just a basic precaution. Honestly, if she'd told me for certain that she needed food and water, I would have stationed half my men here, to ensure she remained fed and hydrated.
"May I ask if the wicked Flynn mentioned where these items were?"
"Err... yes. I made sure to memorize them, as they were my only hope of freedom." She rattles off a list of directions.
"Thank you, milady. I assure you, we'll have you free soon."
"Wait!" she calls as I turn to go. "You... obviously have some kind of mission to be out here. Why are you letting it go, just to help me?"
Well, now she's just not making sense. "Why shouldn't I? It's the right thing to do."
She doesn't have anything to say to that, so I take my leave, my men following me as I head towards the rookery of the Wicked Wyverns of Wisconsin, to retrieve the Blade of Unbinding.
---
As I chop yet another wyvern in half, a thought occurs: I am
never getting all this blood out of my cape. Three wyverns lunge at me, and I dodge the first, kick the second off course, and decapitate the third in one smooth stroke, even as I contemplate the abysmal state of my laundry, and my wardrobe in general. I've had to clean my armor by hand, with sheep's wool and olive oil (not the best stain remover, but it was all I could get my hands on) to get the crusted blood off of it.
I absent-mindedly grab a wyvern by the throat as it tries to attack me, and then hold it up as a shield against its brother's attack, before slicing through the both of them while they're entangled. Still, while I can clean my armor, my cape is another matter entirely. The whole thing a patchwork of dried bloodstains nowadays, moldy green, and grey, with the occasional splash of rust brown. It's ugly as sin, and I can't get it cleaned, mostly because we don't have anyone doing our laundry. The King said it was a frivolity and a waste, but really, why can't we have washerwomen? The Crusaders had washerwomen.
I notice that the wyverns are all dead as a dragon, one of the dumb ones, erupts from the mound, roaring its fury to the heavens, and I decide to table my lamentations over the state of my clothing, at least for the moment. This might actually take some concentration.
Right, just like riding a horse: just follow your muscle memory. Sidestep the fire breath, dodge the claws, and then, when it tries to bite you, dodge to the right, grab it by the horns with your left hand, and then...
"ARONDIGHT OVERLOAD!" I cut its head straight off.
Alright then, time to go back a mile to where I told my men to wait for me, and then tell them to help me search for the Blade of Unbinding. I walk off, leaving the various draconic bodies behind me. Thirty-two wyverns and a dragon. Easily handled, but still, a pleasant workout.
Now then, onto the rest. And then... and then I'll have to go see my son again.
I firmly redirect my thoughts to a more optimistic bent. After all, who knows? Maybe the other monsters will take me a week to get through.
