Camelot Overthrown Read online

  Camelot Overthrown

  Galen Wolf

  Contents

  1. Character Creation

  2. The Quest of the Floorboard

  3. The Quest of the Copper Ore

  4. The Quest of St Ninian

  5. Defending the Chapel

  6. Beginning Smithing

  7. The Quest of the Unholy Altar

  8. To Be a Squire

  9. A Sales Trip

  10. The Fight by The Tower

  11. Sir Mercurius of the Isle

  12. The Quest of St Herbert

  13. The Quest of the Hidden Mine

  14. Return to Silver Drift

  15. Consolidation

  16. Silver Drift Craft Beer

  17. The Battle of the Tower

  18. Sir Luc

  19. A Gift of Potions

  20. The Fangs of Koth

  21. The Lady of the Lake

  22. The Dragon

  23. The Siege of Camelot

  24. Sir Gorrow of the Bloody Field

  25. Retreat, Regroup, Resist

  26. The Council of War

  27. Camelot Overthrown

  28. A New Beginning

  29. From the Author

  30. If you like LitRPG…

  1

  Character Creation

  As soon as I put on the goggles and the load-in is finished, I appear in a circular stone chamber. I’m sitting in a wooden chair — I can feel the wood under my hands. It looks like I’m in the tower of a castle. There are arrow slits in the walls and I see birds fly past. The land outside looks rugged and green. I blink.

  My Heads Up Display displayed my base scores:

  Health 50

  Magic 0

  Reputation 500

  Skill Points 100

  XP 0

  I’m not alone. An owl hops across the stone floor. In the air all around are translucent wiring diagrams, they appear to be game menus. The owl says, “Welcome to Camelot Overthrown.” She sounds female. “I am Blodeuwedd.”

  I was always into Arthurian stories that's why I'm playing Camelot Overthrown. I remember the Welsh Arthurian stories where a woman got turned into an owl, her name was flower-face, Blodeuwedd in Welsh. I say, “Hello, Blodeuwedd.”

  The owl blinks. “I’m here to guide you through character creation and stay as your advisor for as long as you need me.”

  “A tawny owl advisor, eh?”

  “Barn owl.”

  “Sorry, Barn Owl.”

  It seems NPC owls get upset if you mix them up, or maybe it’s just the barn owls, perhaps the tawnies like to be upgraded?

  Though the background of the game really appealed because of my love of knights and quests, in my usual fashion, I didn’t read the game manual in detail before I jumped right in, pulling on my neural net and goggles.

  Blodeuwedd says, “Camelot Overthrown is the newest virtual reality MMO from Miskatonic Games, the company that brought you The Greenwood and Darkworlds.”

  I don’t know if there’s a class system here so I ask.

  The owl hops to my feet. “No classes. The game's skills based.” She glances up and blinks with his bright bird eyes, the inner eyelid flicking over in a creepy way. “Do you mind if I jump up? It’ll be easier to talk.”

  I don’t know what to say. It seems rude to refuse so I nod. the owl jumps up onto my arm, I feel its clawed feet. I rub my chin. “So, what about stats? Strength, Dexterity, etc?”

  “No, stats. That’s all taken care of by the skill system.”

  “Pretty impressive skill system.”

  “Miskatonic wanted it to be lean and efficient. Cut out unnecessary mechanisms and focus on the game-play.”

  “Admirable. So what do I start with?”

  “Reputation - which gives from Divine to Demonic. 0 is Demonic and 1000 is Divine. Your actions in the game shift that score along the line. Then you have your health and your magic skill. Everyone has 50 health at Level 1, but you only get magic if you choose to be a magic-user.”

  “Standard.”

  Blodeuwedd blinks again. That must mean yes.

  “I must say, you’re being very professional,” I say.

  “I take my work seriously,” the owl says.

  “Of course. What’s the other number?”

  “Skill points for you to spend. You get 100 a level.”

  “What’s the level progression?”

  “Level 1 is up to 1000xp, Level 2 is up to 2000xp, Level 3 is—”

  “—3000?”

  “No, 4000xp. Don’t interrupt, please.”

  “Oh sorry.” She’s pretty touchy. “So, all I need to do is allocate my skill points?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Any tips?”

  “No. It’s up to you. I don’t want to influence the free-form nature of the game. What kind of things do you like to do?”

  I scratch my virtual head. “So, this is a fantasy RPG set in King Arthur’s kingdom? Like the Dark Age of Camelot back in the day?”

  “Similar, but Miskatonic believe it offers players a significantly improved experience given the advances in technology.”

  So far I’ve done squat so I can't comment on that, but the background's interesting to me. I ask about the game story.

  Blodeuwedd blinks again, “We sit now in Camelot, one of Arthur’s courts in Britain. It is a fortress surrounded by wild country. There are mountains to the south, north and east, with trackless forests, lost towers, necromancers, threatened villages, magic items, secret dungeons…”

  “Like you’d expect. What’s to the west?”

  “To the west is the sea and over the sea is Ireland. North is Scotia. The Saxons have seized large parts of the Kingdom of the Britons to the east and south. The Norse occupy the north of Scotia and many of its islands.”

  “So a bit of a historical mish-mash? Some truth, but more lies.”

  the owl looks disapproving, though I don’t know how I know that. “The story has been developed to give the best game experience.”

  “But you’ve messed with history?”

  Blodeuwedd pecks me hard on the hand. I yank my hand back on instinct, though it didn’t really hurt. The pain settings are turned right down in the game. “Okay, go on.”

  “But Christendom itself is threatened. The Evil One’s power is spreading throughout the land. Brave Christian knights are required to go out into the mountains and villages and fight back the evil Satanus and his minions.”

  “Knights? I thought you said there were no classes.”

  I sense his annoyance, but I’m the kind of guy who needs to know things like this. I need to get things ironed out.

  “You don’t choose a class, but your skill choices may lead you to entering a profession. So if you put your skill points into swordplay, you will end up choosing the profession of the knight, and possibly joining the Knights of the Round Table.” She pauses. “Or you could become a brigand or a death knight.”

  “So I can be evil if I want?”

  “That will show in your reputation score.”

  “Ah okay. You did mention that.” I’d pretty much already decided to be good. I always play good alignments in games. I liked the idea of being a paladin protecting the weak and beating down the bad guys on behalf of King Arthur.

  She blinks again. “Are you ready to begin your skill allocation?”

  I nod. The translucent wire-diagram comes and parks itself in front of my face. I find I can select items with my mind. That’s cool. There are lots of skills and they open up into skill trees. It seems that points need to be put into the basic tree before you can specialise, for example there is: Magic and after twenty points there are other trees such as White Magic, Grey Magic and Black Magic. In B
lack Magic we have Summoning, Necromancy, Illusion. These are all greyed-out for me as I haven’t committed any points into Magic.

  There’s also Empirical Science which splits into after 20 points into Botany, Zoology, Geology. Rational Science splits into Mathematics, Logic, Philosophy, etc.

  I take a look at Alchemy which splits into Healing, Offensive and Transformational.

  I think I understand how it works.

  “Take a look at Divinity,” Blodeuwedd suggests.

  I do so. Divinity splits into Divine and Infernal. In Divine, the first skill is “Increase damage from Blessings by 2%”, similarly in Infernal the first skill is “Increase damage from Curses by 2%”.

  “What are blessings?” I ask.

  The owl says, “To understand that, we need to talk about combat. Take a look at Swordplay.”

  I bring up the Swordplay tree. This one doesn’t split. The first skill is “Increase to hit score by 5,” then “Increase to hit score by 10,” and so on.

  “Explain?” I ask the owl.

  “The base damage of weapons is created by the Smithing skill tree. So when you hit something with them, that score comes into play. But your ability to hit at all is governed by your swordplay or archery skills.”

  “Okay. I get that. What about armour?”

  “The defensive power of a piece of armour is given to it by the Smithing skill of whoever made it. So that defensive score is subtracted from the offensive score of the weapon.”

  “Okay, so like if I’m wearing plate armour with a defensive score of say…”

  “Fifty.”

  “Okay, fifty and someone has a pea-shooter, with an damage score of say one?”

  ““We don’t have pea-shooters.”

  “Just for an example.”

  “Very well.”

  “Then the pea-shooter would never do damage to the guy in plate-armour?”

  “No, but you wouldn’t expect it to.”

  “But an axe with an offensive score of seventy-five would do two twenty-five damage?”

  “Yes, but only if the axe-man hit in the first place.”

  “And his to hit score comes from his swordplay skill?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay that’s fine.”

  The owl lifts one foot and curls her claw. She stands quite unperturbed on one leg, blinking. “But,” she says. “Damage is calculated as Weapon - Armour, but to hit is Swordplay score - Dodge.”

  “Dodge?”

  “Stands for general agility. Though some high dodge players can do remarkable feats of acrobatics. You have your basic Dodge score, depending on how many skill points you put into Dodge. You match your dodge against your opponent’s to-hit and if to-hit is greater, he hits, if dodge is greater he misses.”

  “Simple.”

  “We like to think so.”

  “But you factor in the armour?”

  “The cumbersomeness of the armour is the same as its protection. So cloth with five armour, only subtracts five from your Dodge score, but plate with seventy-five subtracts seventy-five.”

  “So if I have a Dodge of 10 but am wearing armour worth 75, then my opponent has to beat -65, so he’s going to hit every time.”

  “As long as his to-hit is above zero. And then damage will be calculated on weapon versus armour. So he may hit you but do no damage if he has a low power weapon.”

  “Okay, I’m getting this, is that it?”

  “You can get critical hits. If you hit someone in the back or side you are going to get an automatic critical. Otherwise the Swordplay skill increases your percentage chance to crit as you put more skills into it.”

  “I suppose then I should begin by putting points into Swordplay.”

  “If you want to be a swordsman, yes. Though you could try archery?”

  “No, swords, I think.”

  “Simply choose the Swordplay skill, allocate points and confirm ‘spend’”

  I select the Skills tab on my HUD and I decide to put 20 into Swordplay.

 

  I guess I should put 20 into Dodge too, so I do.

 

  “What else?” I ask.

  “Alchemy will allow you to make healing potions, and in fact other beneficial potions. Herbology will allow you to identify ingredients for potions.”

  “So basically I need two skills to make Alchemy work?”

  “You can buy ingredients as well as pick them yourself, so not necessarily.”

  I scratch my chin. “Not Alchemy, not yet.”

  “Then Prayer maybe?”

  “Tell me how that works.”

  “Check it yourself.”

  There’s a description on the screen.

 

  And that’s all it says. Pretty cool though. I look at the tree. For five points I get For ten and for twenty I get to regenerate 5, though this only works out of combat. I put 20 points into Prayer.

  That leaves me with 40 skill points to spend. I scan the rest of the skills. There are some interesting ones. I see Smithing. For five points I get to work with copper which makes a weapon with 10 damage or armour with 10 protection. For 10 points I can work with tin, which has 20 durability, and for 20 points, I get to work with Cobalt, which doesn't add to durability but gives 5% Cold Protection. I put 20 into Smithing.

  Then I foresee a flaw.

  “But I need to get the minerals, right?”

  Blodeuwedd says. “Yes. You buy moulds for different weapons and then you can make a sword or a helmet from the mould. You can either buy the material or mine it.”

  I check the Mining skill tree. It mirrors the Smithing tree, so five points allows me to mine and smelt copper, ten gives tin and twenty allows me to work with cobalt. I commit twenty points and that's me done.

  The owl says, “You should probably have put something into Divinity.”

  Now she tells me. I check my skill tree: Divinity, at 5 points it says

 

  “Tell me what this means?”

  Around the realm are saints, or demons, who give particular blessings. For example, if you find the Chapel of St Ninian, you add Cold damage to your weapon. St Oswald gives electricity damage. The Divinity skill allows those to become more powerful.

  “But I don’t have any more skill points now.”

  “No. You’ll have to wait until you level. Are you ready for the first quest?”

  “Don’t I get to meet King Arthur yet?”

  “You must be joking. The door’s behind you.”

  Gorrow, Level 1

  Health 50

  Magic 0

  Reputation 500

  Skill Points 100

  XP 0

  Swordplay 20

  Dodge 20

  Prayer 20 (5/60)

  Smithing 20

  Mining 20

  2

  The Quest of the Floorboard

  I walk with Blodeuwedd through the door from the Tower of Character Creation and the door vanishes behind me. Blodeuwedd sees me looking. “No going back in there. You’re born already.”

  We’re in a street of the castle bailey. The curtain wall rises behind us made of massive blocks of red sandstone. The wall itself is punctuated by square towers and guards patrol on the ramparts. I see a red dragon flag fluttering in the breeze though we’re sheltered by the wall down here. There is a smell of some kind of stew and wood smoke coming from a nearby

  building. I hear people laughing through the window, but from where I am, I can’t see in.

  “So where do I go?” I ask the owl.

  Blodeuwedd says, “Follow me,” and lifts off to fly down the street. Every now and again she’ll stop on a gable end or the blacksmith’s sign and wait for me to catch up. I’m not
going to run after her. I have too much self respect. I glance down at myself to see I’m dressed in rags. Pretty standard for an RPG. Not one of the passer’s by, soldiers, wenches, children, or dogs, is paying me the slightest attention.

  I’m so busy keeping my eye on the flapping bird that I almost trip over a group of soldiers sitting outside a tavern playing dice.

  One glares at me. “Easy.”

  “No offence,” I say. I don't want to get into a fight at level one.

  His friend shakes his head. “Don’t pay him no mind, he’s a grumpy sod.”

  I take in the lean faced soldier who snapped at me. He has scars showing he’s no stranger to a fight. I have no idea what level he is. Higher than me though. I walk on, with the lean faced soldier’s eyes boring a hole in my back. I wonder what’s upset him today that he’s being like this.

  We go through the castle portcullis and are in the town of Camelot. We pass a fountain and go down some narrow winding streets until Blodeuwedd lands on the ground before an ordinary house. It’s made of rough stone blocks with rudimentary mortar and has a thatched roof. Smoke escapes through a hole. A dirty faced kid stands in rags outside the house. Smears on his cheeks indicate he’s been crying. I sense a quest coming on.

  “Nice rags,” I say to the kid.

  He’s sullen at first, doesn’t know whether to reply then says, “Yours are nice too.”

  They’re not, but I appreciate the attempt at friendliness. “What’s up?” I ask.

  The kid bows his head. “My father. He beat me this morning.”

  I’m not totally on board with corporal punishment, but maybe the kid deserved it? Somehow, I don’t think so though. This is definitely a quest. “Does he do that much?”

  “No, never.”