[center][h3]The Deacon Arms Tavern[/h3]

[img]https://www.heathmounthotel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Hotel.jpg[/img]

[h3]-7:50 AM September 24th, 2017[/h3][/center]

[hr]

“Morning person” was not a descriptor one might use to describe Albert Prelati. “Narcoleptic” might have been more appropriate tag, or perhaps “sleeps like a cat”, but Albert’s sleep pattern was never quite so consistent. It usually consisted of long bouts of uninterrupted activity and concentration followed by apocalyptic crashes into prolonged unconsciousness, much like a man with access to far too much cocaine, so for now we’ll call him a “burnout”. Adrenaline and not curiosity was the drug that had kept him going ever since the plan to foil Ayondale’s Grail War had begun, so sleep for him began shortly after Saber’s somewhat unexpected summoning, and ended... well, it hadn’t ended yet, anyway.

Albert awoke in a fugue, mired in that ethereal state between dreaming and wakefulness that had long-plagued those like himself. The brave men and women for whom sleep was more of a suggestion rather than a rule. When he got out of bed, he wasn’t even really paying attention to what he was doing. To his sleeping, half-dead mind, it was just what you did. 

Concepts like “morning” or “awake” had no meaning to something when it was “just what you did”, so he got up and did it, blissfully unaware of the time or even the reason for the movement of his own body. He was a ghost who had once haunted the grimy room he’d slept in, and who was now moving on to the next life, blissfully insubstantial. A walking, talking dead man. A somnambulist.

He headed into the bathroom to relieve himself, and commence the set of vague, pre-programmed actions that were “just what you did”. Brushing his teeth and slipping into his new clothes, not bothering to comb over his messy, bedraggled black hair, Albert postponed any troublesome thoughts of things like calling Assassin (who was that again?) and decided he was going to go eat something, and then maybe probably go back to bed. Yeah, that sounded nice. 

Five minutes later, he was saddled up in front of a cup of coffee, black, and a nondescript plate of buttered toast. Shoddy service to be sure, but he wasn’t in any state of mind to complain. Not when he could barely keep his eyes half-open. He picked up the toast and nibbled it, much the way a rabbit would, leaving the coffee to simply aerate his breakfast like an improv aromatic. It was simple, plain, and altogether not exciting, which was just fine by him until he could wake up properly. Too bad it also ended the moment he caught sight of the television above the bar.

The old, bulky monitor was showing the early morning news. Their top story? An overnight fire that had destroyed the remains of Urquhart Castle. 

Albert stopped chewing, his brain clawing for the surface, a distant scream welling up inside him like an ocean swell. Images were splayed across the screen like an autopsy, dissecting the burnt and tortured remains of the historical site. The scent of the coffee went from black to acrid and burnt beneath his nose, and suddenly Albert was back there again, wide awake, running and crying and trying not to vomit while his comrades screamed and died around him. 

Panic overwhelmed him. He was awake now, and alert. Far, far too alert. Heart thumping in his chest, he looked around for Ayondale or other signs of the enemy before his brain finally told him it was alright, that it had just played a trick on him. It wasn’t a funny one.

Suddenly queasy and capable of remembering everything that had happened, Albert looked at his continental breakfast with distaste. He... wasn’t very hungry anymore.

[i]Eat it,[/i] he thought. [i]You’ll need it for later.[/i]

Twisting his eyes shut, he made like a dog and tucked in, finishing the food as quickly as he could. Gasping and sighing, he looked up at the ceiling, and wondered. What the hell was he doing here? What were any of them still doing here?

Albert looked around for the other Masters. Were they awake yet?