Early the next morning, in his tower, Arthur wakes up to find a soothsayer in his bedroom.

“Who are you and how did you get in here?” Arthur not unreasonably wants to know.

Merlin says not to worry, he’s Merlin, this is technically the first time they’ve met (at least it’s the first record Malory makes of their meeting) but it’s all cool, now come out of the tower and have a nice civil sit-down with the kings.

“The kings who are trying to kill me?” asks Arthur.

“The very same!” says Merlin. “And some of them still want to kill you, so, you know, when you talk to them, sound tough.”

Arthur for whatever reason completely accepts Merlin’s advice, and goes out to chat with the other kings, though under his party clothes he wears a suit of armor. That can’t be comfortable.

They’re all, so you’re Arthur son of Uther who thinks he’s better than us, and Arthur’s all, so you’re Lot and Uriens and Mister 100 and the other guys whose names I can’t remember, who dispute my divinely-granted right to rule you like, and I mean this literally, a king.

“Grr!” say the kings. “We’ll never bow to you!”

“Grr!” says Arthur. “I’ll make you bow to me!”

“Grr!” say the kings. “No way! We’re leaving!”

“Grr!” says Arthur. “Well thanks for coming out! Have a nice trip back!”

“Grr!” say the kings. “Oh, we will! We’re doing some antiquing on the way home!”

“Grr!” says Arthur. “Be sure to get a gift basket on your way out! It’s mostly fruit! Stay healthy!”

“Grr!” say the kings… anyway, this goes on for a while because neither side wants to let the other have the last word, but eventually the kings are gone, and Merlin catches up to the kings and is like, what now?

“Listen, Merle, get out of my face, I’m really not in the mood right now,” says Lot.

“Pshaw,” says Merlin. He goes back to Arthur. “Hey Arthur,” he says, “go attack Lot, he was mean to me just now.”

“Sure,” says Arthur.

Arthur is in the middle of a big crowd of his knights who are all saying things like “you did great back there boss” and “you sure told them, huh boss.”

“Great,” says Merlin. “But listen, don’t pull out your new magic sword-from-the-stone sword. Use a regular sword until you’re right in the shit, and then draw Excalibur, it’ll be great.”

Malory has Merlin call the sword-in-the-stone sword Excalibur here, so, that happens.

“Sure sure,” says Arthur. He and his knights hop onto horses and ride off to attack the various other kings and their knights, who are packing up to go.

Big fight scene! Sir Baudwin kills a guy! Sir Kay kills a guy! Sir Brastias is getting up in years but he kills a guy also! King Arthur kills a pile of guys!

Counterattack! The other kings and their knights hop on horses and circle around and get our boys from behind! Mister 100 is just laying into them! Oh no! Someone killed Arthur’s horse! Arthur is down! King Lot is kicking him in the stomach and laughing! Why aren’t the refs stopping this?!

Arthur’s men are rescuing him! It’s a classic play, folks, real textbook medieval combat you can tell your kids about! He’s back on another horse! He’s pulling out — is that a magic sword?

Yes, I think it must be his magic sword Excalibur, you can tell because all of his enemies have been blinded! Arthur is just cutting into them now! He’s really making the most of that +1 to attack and damage!

The crowd loves it! We’ve got a capacity crowd here at Caerleon Stadium, and every one of them is on their feet shouting ARTHUR! ARTHUR! Now they’re spilling over onto the field and rioting and attacking Arthur’s enemies! This is one for the history books!

Now Lot and the other kings are slinking away, because it’s either that or start trying to kill all the peasants in the region. Is Arthur going to chase them down and kill them? No, no, Arthur’s head coach Merlin is pulling him out of there.

Final score Arthur sixty-three, Lot and Mister 100 et cetera seven.