"Then rise, my Champion, and claim that which is yours by right. The Quest Eternal awaits you."
Louis' eyes snapped open and stared up with awe at the figure in front of him. He had so many questions. He had expected that when the server ended he would be logged out automatically and open his eyes to the inside of his headset, instead he was greeted with the most perfect and beautiful voice he had ever heard, and a vision which far surpassed that which he had been seeking.
Floating stationary in the air in front of him was the Lady of the Lake in her full beauty, her flowing golden clothes hanging weightlessly off her form, throwing off shimmering waves of light as she hovered above the fountain in front of him. The gaze of her blue eyes seemed to pierce right through him, and he averted his gaze as he felt himself begin to go into shock at the situation. Everything seemed so real to him, the warm steel of his sword against his hands, the comforting weight of the armour on his body, the smell of the garden filtering through the air…
Wait a minute, YGGDRASIL doesn't have touch or smells - that's not included in the hardware. What's happening?
This was far too realistic to be the game he had played and loved. Looking for his menus and the game clock, Louis also realized that all of that had disappeared from his view, in fact he seemed to have no interface at all. As he was musing about all of this, there was a soft clank as someone behind him gave him a swift kick in the back. A quiet voice hissed at him
"Get up Ser Karolus! You can't leave the Lady waiting!"
Reacting instinctively and in shock, Louis immediately stood bolt upright and turned his head to look behind him and see what was happening. He saw that it was Morgiana who had kicked him, and she was floating behind him with her head bowed and a peeved expression. Next to her was Ser Carloman, who seemed to be frozen in catatonic rapture as he knelt, staring past Karolus at the Lady with nothing short of pure awe written across his face.
This was also very new, the NPCs that Louis had bought had never been programmed to have facial expressions, let alone voice lines, and that particular line certainly wasn't in the programmable settings as far as he had seen or experienced in the game. Completely lost, Louis decided that it was probably best to just play along while he figured out what was going on, and turned back to face the Lady.
"Grail Knight, you have been taken far from all you know, and far from all who know of my blessings. You will be my champion to them, and will protect them, for a dire evil threatens all life in this world. O valiant knight, bless your holy sword and drink deep once again from the Grail, that it may preserve you in this perilous world."
Floating down towards him, the Lady tipped the cup toward Karolus, its waters a pale gold as they flowed out and down onto the sword that Karolus was still dumbly holding up toward her. The water seemed to actually flow into the sword itself, seeping into the metal and running along the blade with a pure glow as Louis felt the sword grow to be light as a feather - another sensation that the game had so far lacked.
Sheathing the sword instinctively as the Lady beckoned to him, Louis stepped hesitantly forwards and placed a hand on the bottom of the Grail, his hands slightly shaky as he drank from the liquid it contained. Its taste was utterly indescribable, but it truly was the most amazing thing he had ever experienced - it was as if the concepts of hope and purity had been condensed into a liquid, and it calmed his mind and sharpened his senses, even as he continued to struggle with coming to grips with his current situation. Though he was struggling to deal with the situation, the functioning information-gathering part of his brain noted that he hadn't noticed the effect of the [Lady's Grail] activate on him after he drank from it - he would have to find out why.
"When you are prepared, head north with all haste, for the Capital of these lands will soon come under attack by a vicious demon, and you alone can save it. Until you return, this garden and I will await you."
Clearly finished with him, the Lady looked up at the two figures standing behind Karolus as she floated back up above the fountain she had come down from.
"Morgiana, you must play your part in this too. You are joined forever to your Grail Knight, and will need all your strength to protect him. To you I return and entrust the Grail itself in this dire time; do not make me regret my choice."
As she said this, she held out the [Lady's Grail] towards Morgiana as if she was offering it to her, and it floated across the intervening space between them into the waiting arms of Morgiana, whose eyes shone with awe as she grasped it tightly to her chest.
"And you, Ser Carloman, though a faithful Errant-Knight you have been, you are yet to truly prove yourself worthy independently; all your great feats are shared by your Grail Knight. To be worthy of the Grail you must be yourself entirely deserving. I have no doubt that in time you will succeed, but for now you shall be but a Questing Knight; I send you back out into the world."
"Alas that I cannot stay longer, but my time here wanes. Stay safe, my faithful, and know that my blessings go with you wherever you go."With those parting words, the Lady of the Lake floated back down into the fountain, her body disintegrating into floating motes of light as it touched the surface, leaving barely a ripple on the surface of the water. Above, where the water pouring from the stone chalice had stopped, water began to flow again, and the sound seemed to break a trance that had gripped the garden. Once again, birds began to chirp, the wind began to blow gently through the hedges, and Ser Karolus and his party released a collectively held breath. Turning to face Karolus with a stern look, Morgiana was the first one to speak.
"What on earth were you thinking? The Lady finally graces you with her presence again, and you just kneel there staring with your mouth wide open like a dead fish? How could you be so disrespectful?"
Louis, realizing that he was staring again, spluttered out a response of sorts.
"I...uh...I was just stunned by her presence, that's all. Do you know what she meant by being taken far from all we know? Or anything about this new quest?"
Morgiana looked at him flatly.
"I know just as much as you, Ser Karolus, you know I've never been any good at Divination. As for the new quest, I'd say that she said just about everything you need, or did you need it spelled out for you?"
Louis was about to respond when he realized that Carloman was yet to rise to his feet, and had been muttering quietly to himself. Listening, he could hear that the knight was repeating something to himself over and over again.
"I will give my body, heart and soul to the Lady whom I seek."
Casting his mind back, Louis remembered this as the final line to the Questing Vow, the Vow that a Knight would take when they relinquished all worldly ties in order to seek the Grail and the Lady. As Carloman finally raised his head, Louis almost took a step back in shock - there was a burning intensity and desire in his eyes as he gazed up at the fountain in front of him, an expression of pure determination that one rarely sees in the drudgery of the modern day. It was this, of all things, that convinced Louis that something truly bizarre and inexplicable had happened.
With all the various advancements in technology over the last century, there was still yet to exist a software advanced enough to create facial expressions this emotive and real on the faces of characters, certainly not as they responded to things in real time. Unless this was an insanely targeted advertisement for him, there was no way this could have been done given the software or hardware that existed at the moment.
With the fire in his eyes burning brightly, Carloman stood and grinned almost savagely as he turned to his companions.
"At long last, I have seen her, and she even knows my name? I could not be better blessed by this day! Come now, friends, our Lady told us about a Demon and a helpless city and we stand around talking? Where is your drive? We must leave at once!"
Not even waiting for a response, he turned on the spot and practically ran for the exit, the white flames at the entrance reforming behind him as he passed through them. Shaking her head, Morgiana started after him.
"Ser Carloman, where are you going? Are you going to run to the city on foot? Please stop rushing off ahead!"
As she too passed through the flames and off into the garden, Louis fell backwards into the lush grass and sighed incredibly deeply to himself. High above, the vine-laden canopy of the dome rustled softly in the breeze, and the soothing cool of the ground comforted him as he mused about what had happened. Eliminating the possibility that this was still a game would be important if he was to treat this as if it was as real as it felt to him. Somehow, instinctively, he could tell that his inventory existed, along with an understanding of the variety of auras and buffs that graced him - a fact that was further confirmed when he felt some of them fade away as Morgiana moved far enough away that he was out of their area of effect.
Putting his hand out in front of him, he attempted to retrieve something from his inventory, and watched in wonder as his hand disappeared through a small white portal in the air and immediately had a firm grip on the [High Potion] he had been looking for. Pulling it back through the portal, he felt it leave his inventory, and stared in wonder at the perfect, high class crystal of the potion bottle, and the beautiful red hue of the liquid inside it; it looked like it deserved to be on the top shelf of a high-class bar, not some meaningless potion that he had thousands of in a stack in his inventory.
Replacing the potion in his inventory, Louis did a few more tests, summoning weapons to his hand, changing armor sets, and trying out a couple of basic abilities. He could physically feel himself grow more powerful as he cast buffing spells and abilities on himself, and weaker when they wore off. It would seem that he was capable of everything he was capable of in-game, and more. Certainly, Louis was not a well-trained swordsman in real life, but he felt an almost innate understanding of Karolus's basic sword patterns come to him the longer he swung his sword around; yet another thing that he couldn't explain.
He had one more thing to check, as a test to see if he was still in a game, but he felt like it would be somewhat sacreligious to do so in the Sanctum of the Grail. So turning his back on the fountain, and the Lady who inhabited it, Louis walked Ser Karolus out into the world, and the fate that awaited him.