[color=6ecff6][center][h2]Cleo Forsberg[/h2][/center][/color]
[color=6ecff6][center][h3]Preparing for war[/h3][/center][/color]

[color=6ecff6]“I had a feeling that would be your answer. I suppose I should do what I can to locate our enemies then.”[/color] Cleo stepped away from Shielder and moved towards the low table she had pushed aside earlier to make room for her circle, turning her back on the Servant who only moments ago had threatened her life. The suitcase she had brought with her to Japan still sat open where she had left it, clothing and various implements of magecraft visible inside, including the chalk she had used to draw the framework of the summoning ritual. Grabbing something from within the case Cleo turned back to Ajax, a short wooden tool of some kind now held in one hand.

Practitioners of Seidr had always been thought of as [i]weavers[/i] of fate, so it was incredibly fitting that the tool most associated with them was one used to help ease the spinning of threads by keeping them tangled together. The distaff Cleo now held was one that had been in her family’s possession for what must have been centuries and it had been used in all of their most important rituals for almost as long; even just holding it she could feel the spiritual energy around her thrumming, while those spirits which had been bound to her workshop and those which was still lay dormant in the graveyard feeling that much closer to her. Or was she closer to them?

[color=6ecff6]“This will only take a moment. Watch over me while I’m gone.”[/color] This was, she supposed, the first leap of faith she was going to take in this war; she was betting on the fact that Shielder would be true to his word and protect her as she made herself as vulnerable as she possibly could. Closing her eyes Cleo took a deep breath before, with a sensation like stepping off the edge of a cliff, she activated her magic circuits and entered a light trance. When her eyes next opened they were glassy and unfocused and what Cleo saw was not the room or Shielder, but a vast network stretching into infinity like the web of a particularly diligent spider.

When the elders and more experienced mages of her family came together, crafting a large ritual over the course of days and combining their efforts, they scoured this network for information about the future. They untangled the threads of fate, seeing which paths led to what outcomes and making sense of the near incomprehensible mess that came with trying to change the future. What she was doing now was nowhere near as complicated, merely glancing at the nearest threads to get a vague hint of an idea of what would happen in the next hour or so. Would she and her Servant find enemies if they went North? What if they went West? East? South? South.

She would find conflict to the South.

Coming out of her trance and finding herself still in one piece, Cleo focused her vision with some effort and found Shielder’s gaze. [color=6ecff6]“Our enemies are to the South; only to the South, for some reason. Perhaps they are already fighting each other, or there’s only one pair brave enough to venture out tonight. We’ll find out soon I suppose. Let’s go.”[/color]

[@Crusader Lord]