Unknownfate
patreon
Chapter 188
🕑 Added 2025-07-27 15:02:20 +0000 UTCDespite our best effort, we found very little of use, it was clear that Selene didn’t do any of her dark magic here, and instead treated this place as a holiday home, or just a casual hideout, not somewhere she kept anything of importance.
I could only assume that she had some magical means of travel, something that allowed her to access her true workshop easily.
Not that we didn’t find anything at all. At least Mordred found plenty of things, she really did take the whole treasure hunting idea very seriously.
“Mordred, how are you going to transport all this?” I asked as I saw the small mountain of stuff she had collected.
She turned toward me with an indignant huff, arms crossed over her chest like I had just questioned her very existence. “I’m a knight, Father. Knights don’t worry about logistics—we leave that to squires.”
“You don’t have a squire.”
“I’m working on that,” she said, nudging a gilded vase with her foot. “Lancelot could pull his weight for once.”
Lancelot didn’t even dignify the comment with a glance, instead busy inspecting one of the few enchanted items Selene had left behind—a mirror that no longer reflected anything. Likely cursed, or at the very least keyed to her aura. Useless now.
“She had nothing here of value,” he eventually concluded, his voice low. “This estate was a mask, a costume for a play she performed when bored. Everything important was kept elsewhere.”
“Indeed, as Mordred said, this place didn’t have the feeling of an evil lair at all.”
“Vibe! I said it didn’t have the vibe of an evil lair. Come on Father, try to get with the times.” Mordred interrupted.
“Don’t be rude to His Majesty,” Lancelot spoke up in my defence, only to get the bird from Mordred.
“Even if Lancelot was willing to help, even if all of us carried as much as we could… we still wouldn’t be able to keep even half of this stuff.” I said as I watched the pile of treasure.
It was mostly shiny stuff, Mordred clearly cared little for paintings, no matter how valuable art might be. If it wasn’t made of gold or covered in shiny gems, she didn’t care about it, at least she didn’t care about taking it. She cared just enough to shoot holes in it, or smash it into pieces.
Mordred gave a dramatic sigh and flopped onto the nearest fainting couch — half-covered in ash and undoubtedly once worth a small fortune. “Fine, fine. I’ll narrow it down to the really shiny stuff.”
“We’re not looters,” I reminded her.
“I’m selectively preserving valuables of historical interest,” she countered with a smirk. “It's big back home, you should see the stuff they stuffed in that big museum in Londinium.”
I rubbed at my temple. Because I knew she wasn’t wrong… good old Britain did have a habit of collecting valuable items of historical interest.
I honestly didn’t know what to say to her, stealing was bad… but for some reason, stealing from the French just felt… right? It was strange, but the magic of the throne of heroes and heroic spirits was strange stuff.
Even removed from it, it had left its mark. “You just want to show off at the next Round Table.”
“…Maybe,” she admitted, her smirk growing wider. “But imagine Sir Kay’s face when I slam a three-hundred-year-old vampire-slaying goblet on the table like a beer mug.”
Lancelot gave a quiet sigh of long-suffering. “I don’t see what makes any of this vampire-slaying treasure, it's just gold and jewels.”
“Well, they don’t know that, do they? If I say it's something special, how would they know the truth?” Mordred said, sounding almost proud of having realized that lying seems to be a thing.
“If you can lift it, I’m sure Mr. Wagner will be able to help you, though getting it back to Camelot might be more difficult.” I decided to just not think about it and let it be Mordred’s problem.
Before my words even faded, the sound of Nightcrawler appearing filled the room, as did the familiar smell of sulfur.
“Wow! What’s all this stuff?” He exclaimed as he saw the pile of treasure before him.
“This is my loot!” Mordred said proudly, despite just claiming she wasn’t looting the place…
“Mr Wagner, are you able to move with this much? I’m not fully aware of how heavy a weight you can transfer at once, though I’m sure Mordred could pack it up so she could carry it,” I paused and looked at the pile. “Or at least drag it.”
Nightcrawler scratched the back of his neck, looking between Mordred and the glimmering mountain of wealth. “I’m normally limited by weight… not really by volume… but how much does this all weigh?”
Mordred waved him off. “Almost nothing, it's just gold, hardly a big deal.”
Nightcrawler looked at her strangely. Not that I blamed him, because gold was widely known as being particularly heavy compared to its volume.
However, neither did I blame Mordred, because to her, there was little difference compared to a volume of iron or gold, even wood and gold wouldn’t feel all that different to her.
“Alright, Mordred, pack up, and we will see about transporting it all. Mr Wagner, if you could please take us to our hotel, take the kids first if you would.” I asked.
“Hey! We aren’t kids!” Maxime protested, but it fell on deaf ears. Mordred was already off to find something to wrap around her loot, and Nightcrawler just nodded as he walked over to them.
“Excuse me,” he said, before he disappeared in a puff of smoke, and reappeared on his own a moment later.
Mordred didn’t even look up from the curtain she was aggressively yanking off the wall to use as a makeshift sack. “Just give me a moment here, I can’t do it that fast.” She complained as the rest of us stood and waited as she roughly shoved old treasures into her sack.
I heard plenty of sounds of stuff breaking due to her carelessness, and each time she broke a priceless relic, poor Kurt would flinch.
Who could blame him, he had grown up poor, and seeing something worth a car or even a house get broken before his eyes, it couldn’t have been easy. Even more so when Mordred seemingly decided that if she couldn’t have it, no one could.
Item after item was stomped on as she discarded them, broken and shattered as she suddenly deemed them worthless. Even items made of silver and gold, if they weren’t shiny enough, she would crush and twist them, or break the shiniest bits off.
Even I felt a pinch seeing her do that. Some of the items she discarded were clearly far more valuable than the ones she kept. Tons of fake gold and cheap pearls made it into her sack, while far more valuable and real relics were broken as trash.
I would need to find someone who could teach her what is valuable and what isn’t, in case she ever wanted to go on another looting spree.
“Alright, that’s everything I can fit in there.” Mordred finally said as she stood next to the sack, one larger than herself, but one she could at least drag around, even if it looked like she wrapped up a small family car.
“Good, let's get back to the Hotel then, before someone comes around to investigate the explosion,” I said, gesturing for Nightcrawler to proceed.
Nightcrawler gave a wary glance at the bag. “That… thing better not rattle or scream when I teleport.”
“No promises,” Mordred said with a mischievous grin. “Some of it might still be haunted.”
“I really hope you’re joking.”
She was not. But thankfully, nothing was haunted or even magical in nature. Just expensive or made to look expensive. That and old, lots of old, irreplaceable bits of art and jewelry.
With another resigned sigh and puff of sulfur, Nightcrawler took hold of the oversized curtain sack and Mordred’s arm, vanishing in a flash.
Lancelot stood beside me, arms folded. “Why did you not stop Mordred’s foolishness, Your Majesty?”
I sighed, “You are French, you wouldn’t understand this. It's in her blood.”
“Indeed, I do not understand.” He said, sending me some suspicious looks, likely wondering if it was something in my blood or Morgan’s.
“I’m back!” Nightcrawler said as he returned again, slightly winded. “It was a lot harder than expected, but I guess Mordred helped, that girl sure is strong.
“That she is,” I agreed. “Can you take both of us? Lancelot clearly does not wish to leave me on my own.”
“Yeah, no problem.” He said, offering both of his hands.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Nightcrawler nodded, and in the next instant, the world vanished in a cloud of sulfur and displaced air.
Bamf.
The hotel room was one fit for a king, as it was Lancelot who had ordered it; he tried his hardest to find one he found worthy of me.
So it was a spacious place, filled with tasteful objects and luxury, or at least it had been when we left.
Now?
Mordred had ruined the place with her sack of loot; the massive, bulging sack had knocked over everything that wasn’t nailed down. Be it chairs knocked around, lamps shattered, pictures knocked off the walls, and every little item in her path now on the ground or in pieces.
“It won’t fit!” Manon cried as she stood next to her brother, trying to push the back of the sack through the door to Mordred’s bedroom.
“Just break whatever is stuck!” Mordred called back from the other side of the blocked door.
“We can’t! It's too hard!” Maxime yelled back, kicking the sack as best he could, but he was only as strong as a normal person, and that just wasn’t enough to do what Mordred asked.
“Well, if I keep pulling the sack, it will break!” Mordred complained, clearly troubled by the problem she found herself in.
“If you pull it, you’ll destroy the doorframe.” I warned.
“I already broke the doorframe!” Mordred shouted from within. “The problem is the wall now!”
Lancelot gave me a long look. “Would you like me to intervene?”
“No,” I sighed. “Let them learn.”
I knew I shouldn’t be surprised, but really… they had been here for less than thirty seconds and somehow… they had already caused this many problems?
Nightcrawler quietly stepped aside, clearly unwilling to get caught in the middle. Maxime gave the sack one final, useless kick, then turned to me, arms flailing. “She’s wrecking the whole suite!”
“She started wrecking it the moment she arrived,” Manon muttered.
“I didn’t mean to ruin the decor!” Mordred called back. “It’s just... poorly designed!”
“You dragged half a brass fireplace through the hallway.” Manon shot back.
“Brass!? I thought it was gold! Fuck! I got scammed! Stupid French! I demand compensation.” Mordred shouted angrily.
“You stole it! Who are you depending on for compensation?” Maxime asked, sounding curious.
“I don’t know, someone French!” Mordred answered as she continued to struggle with the sack.
The rest of us just stood by and watched the chaos, as if it were a free show.
“Lancelot, order some room service, I’m going to need a drink… and a snack for what is to come next.” I sighed, knowing that once Mordred calmed down, she too would be eager to know about Excalibur Morgan and its dark nature.
