[center][h2] [color=f7941d]Rostam[/color] [/h2][/center]
[hr]

Even for a Servant the figure that arose from the circle of chicken blood was alarming. Many heroes of antiquity possessed great stature, warriors blessed with brawn comparable to a god, mighty conquerors and rebellious slaves who stood a head taller than the common man, raging demigods who stood a head taller than even that. In the end though, each of these would have been still recognizable as a human.

What now stood before the Homunculus Lorelei Baggett could not be called human at all anymore. It was clearly some kind of giant. 

At the last pronouncement of the sacred ritual, the call of the Grail had rung out reaching deep within the Throne of Heroes, intent on pulling one of the residents into the real world. Around the circle a phantom wind had picked up, hot and dry like the desert, carrying with it the smell of horses, steel and fragrant oils. As a glowing mist began to coalesce into a figure, prana began pouring out like a geyser from the circle, a beacon of energy that would be visible to any remotely prana sensitive being for miles around. 

Then it was all over, and in front of Lorelei was a man of truly inhuman proportions. It was fortunate that the Magi had chosen to summon him out of doors, for the Servant would not have fit inside a house, and would have torn through to the second floor just by standing. 

He towered over her now, a mountain of muscle that defied belief. His broad chest was like a castle wall, his bulging arms seemed bigger around than the trunks of trees, certainly bigger around than the torso of an ordinary man. Had he been naked, this juggernaut of flesh and bone would have seemed unassailable from a glance, but encasing his impossible frame was a suite of scaled armor that would have been more in place on a tank. Between this and the fiery red and orange cloak of dragonhide that he wore swathed about him, it would have been hard to imagine a more alarming figure to suddenly appear in the modern age. 

The picture was completed by the large horned skull that was perched atop his head, empty hollow sockets seeming to stare at whatever he turned his attention to, while the wolflike teeth of the skull rested around his lofty brow.

The giant looked down on Lorelei for a moment, solemn and ponderous. His face, conventionally handsome though larger and thicker set than any humans, seemed older, streaked here and there with the beginnings of wrinkles. Between these and the thick lustrous black beard that dominated his lower jaw, it was difficult to tell if he looked old or young. 

Slowly the giant sunk to one armored knee, and though he still towered over his Summoner, he bowed his head slightly and managed to convey deference. 

[color=f7941d]"You who have called me forth, I ask of you... are you my Master?"[/color]


[hr]
[h2][center][color=007236]Alex Bradan[/color][/center][/h2]
[hr]

Muttering to himself in frustration, squatting over on the dirty floor, the Magi in the faded green fishermans jacket squinted at the circle of cards that he had laid out in painstaking order over the other, more traditional magic circle. Lead based paint, silver shavings, the blood of a parasitic blind fish that fed only on Kelpies, all these and more had been sacrificed in what was seeming more and more like a pointless exercise in Formacraft.

Biting his thumbs and takeing another few puffs on his cigaret Alex Bradan spat out the taste of lead and prodded at the still wet circle unhelpfully, smearing the pattern into a new shape that would hopefully be more conductive to what he was trying to attain. 

The promised signs had appeared on his hands almost as soon as The Scuttle had pulled into harbor at Fuyuki City a few days earlier. They had burned coming in, but that was to be expected considering the tremendous freight that they carried with them. Since then Alex had been laboring in vain to bring about the miracle that they made possible. Maybe it was that he was unused to this sort of circle creation, maybe it was because he had no relic with which to work with. More likely however, it was that for the past few days he had been in fierce debate with himself. 

Why take this risk? Why belive the cards this time when they were so often wrong? Why choose to gamble it all now? Here? When he still had a good twenty or thirty years ahead of him as a Magus?

Now though, those questions had finally dropped away. He had been staying up later and later each night going over the plans for the circle and reading his cards, and now all he felt was tired. 

Tired was apparently preferable to internally conflicted by whatever incomprehensible metric the Holy Grail used however, for when he at last began to chant the rehearsed words of summoning again, this time something happend. 

Alex felt his eyes widen even as he chanted. The dingy, rusty interior of his shipboard workshop was being illuminated by the prana that was suddenly swirling forth from the circle of bloody paint and arranged tarot cards. Old paint, far too long neglected was flaking off the walls as a sudden wind sprung up inside the cabin. Dank moldering papers flew everywhere, while on the walls snakes and other less pleasant amphibians writhed in their grime speckled tanks, trying to get away from the light. 

Benight him the ship listed slightly, as if the waters where the Mion river and the sea joined were rising to try and greet the coming hero. 

[color=007236]"...Come forth from the ring of restraint, Protector of the Balance!"[/color]

[hr]
[@Holy Grail] [@Cu Chulainn]