Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A LitRPG Novella: Camelot LitRPG, #3

By Galen Wolf

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the second and a half book in the Camelot Overthrown LitRPG Series. 

Instead of Sir Gorrow as the hero, we have Sir Gawain in this retelling of the tale of honour and loyalty where the knights of King Arthur encounter a powerful supernatural creature who seemingly can cheat death but at the same time end their lives forever.

The mysterious Green Knight steps out of the winter cold, with his green holly branch and his might fey axe. This axe has tremendous powers and can kill most creatures with one shot. The Green Knight says it will belong to whoever is brave enough to cut off his head.

Gawain is that man.

The Camelot series features stories of Sir Gorrow in addition to Arthurian legends of chivalry and knighthood retold as LitRPG stories where the heroes' courage and honor is tested time and again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Rabbit Press
• Release date: Nov 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386289746

Book preview

Introduction

Miskatonic Games had a great success when they launched the virtual reality massively multi player game Camelot. And capitalizing on this success they brought out expansion sets at three months and then at six months post launch. Each realm of Logres was instanced and so there was only one player playing King Arthur, one playing Merlin, one playing Sir Gawain, et cetera, in each instance.

At first, the focus was on general questing but the developers added the Dungeon Master pack which allowed players to construct and run their own dungeons. Trying to appeal to a wider market, they added the Courtly Love pack, very much in the theme of the times and so players could get experience (XP) from taking part in musical events and plays and if they chose, from loving rather than fighting. That expansion pack was controversial, but no one was forced to enter into the romantic side of the games though weddings and courtships could grant XP if that’s how you wanted to play it. So players married in the games and some of them leveled without ever killing a monster.

The Developers wanted to enhance the feel of the game by weaving in stories from the original King Arthur legends, and some of the developers would play certain roles, though they always gave themselves special powers and abilities. And that is where this story begins…

Knight Riding

1

Christmas Eve at King Arthur’s Court

It was Christmas, and King Arthur was with his court at Camelot. While winter closed in with an icy fist on the mountains and forests around the city, inside the keep it was warm and fires burned brightly and knights and ladies made merry. Arthur sat at court and many a gallant lord and lovely lady were around him as well as the noble brotherhood of the Round Table .

As they feasted in the Great Hall of the keep, the walls were decked with holly and ivy and sparkling baubles of fine Arabian glass.

During that Christmas period, the king’s knights would go forth to quest and get their XP and level up and enter the dungeons to find much loot and mighty gear. Some took squires with them to teach these new players the rules of chivalry by hunting fell beasts such as cockatrices and dragons that lurked in the caves and wild valleys of the north in those days.

As they sat at leisure, the bards performed for the knights and the king in the Great Hall and all that heard their song gained an XP bonus while the bards strummed their lutes and sang out to the song of harps and pipes. This was at the beginning of the game Camelot and King Arthur was young and hot-headed in those days. He sat, silver wine cup in hand and beside him was his lady, the beautiful Guinevere.

But, the truth be told, Arthur was bored and wanted adventure. He longed to go out hunting evil creatures with his knights in the wild forest of Inglewood, but his knights advised against this because they feared for his safety in case he was waylaid while hunting by the minions of Satanus, who even though their lord was trapped at Tantallon were plentiful in the wide lands around Camelot, and went forth in hunting packs, especially at night.

And after Christmas passed, it was New Year. On New Year’s Day the Knights of the Round Table went to the Chapel for Mass and when that was done, they came to the Great Hall where the long table was heaped with food and groaning under the weight of sweet meats laid out for them.

The bards played and there was great delight and the music and all that heard the bards got the benefit of the musical XP bonus.

Queen Guinevere sat next to Arthur on the high dais. Her seat was upholstered in silk and there was a canopy over her head embroidered with stars and studded with costly gems. She was the most beautiful woman of all of them present with grey-blue eyes and black hair, after the way of the Irish, from whose race she was descended.

NPC servants came and laid out food for all present, but Arthur would not eat until all were served. He signaled for the servants to begin at the end furthest from him and they served Sir Bors and Sir Loth, and then Sir Lancelot, whose eyes were fixed on the Queen rather than the food before him. Also there were Sir Galahad and Sir Parsifal, Sir Mercurius and Sir Tristan.

Arthur held up his hand for silence and all listened. ‘Knights of the Round Table, you know it is our custom each New Year in Camelot to await a strange adventure before we eat.’

Sir Bors coughed into his fist and said, ‘We may wait until the food goes cold.’

Arthur shook his head. ‘I say we wait thirty game minutes, and if nothing happens, we eat.’

A murmur of general agreement rippled round the table and the knights and their ladies, generally priests or female warriors not yet elevated to the guild of the Knights of the Round Table, waited.

There was no need for players to eat to sustain themselves in the game Camelot, but food did provide temporary low level buffs, so the players dug into the chicken and pies and quaffed red Gaulish wine from goblets of Cornish silver.

While they waited for the adventure to arrive, if there was to be any at all, and some of them doubted that, the King sat on his dais before the high tables and talked of the progress of the war against Satanus. In those days it was going well (though the future would tell another story). The Kings armies had besieged the Evil One at high Tantallon Castle where the waves of the German Sea crash against cruel rocks. He was holed up there with his vampires and his werewolves, his trolls and his hobgoblins and every day that went by, the good folks of Camelot prayed it was a day closer to his final defeat.

‘How was your recent trip to Tantallon, my love?’ Guinevere asked, staring at her husband with her sea-grey eyes.

Arthur laughed. ‘It was entertaining. It’s always fun to win.’ Then he grew serious. ‘I’m not fighting against Satanus out of any battle of egos, or my army is bigger than your army motive. You know when he’s free to roam, he and the guilds that follow him cause untold grief to ordinary players. When he’s besieged and surrounded by our knights and men-at-arms by land, our warships by sea and our