He was trying to avoid people. One could say Jerome had been doing this for most of his life at this point. But this specific point was different from anything else. A ritual few mages would ever experience, partly because it isn’t easy to get included but mostly because the risk was too big for a reward which may never come.

But maybe he was here for the risk rather than the reward.

[centre][img]https://64.media.tumblr.com/d4cec1a5cca96752f3805abe0ce7efb5/b4eff637ee00edd6-d7/s500x750/fa8d6bc9d2ef85deed0d5cee27047cc9e21cad9a.jpg[/img][/centre]

On the previous day, he passed the border with a somewhat heavy cargo. He didn’t bother with the customs as he was used to bypassing them. His target lied in the town of Sion. 
He arrived after midnight. There, an apartment had been rented already. The third floor of an unremarkable building in the industrial district. The buildings were big, or at least as big as he could hope for in such a small town, and they were packed. Walls were like doors to him and such a building would hardly seem like the home of a mage. For him, this was ideal.

A central room combining living room and kitchen separated by a counter, a small bathroom and two bedrooms. Already furnished. He didn’t even really look at any of it. The moment his hand touched the door, he knew all he needed.
Disconnection of all sensation of touch. Connection to earth though the thaumaturgy of geomancy. Earth is a fundamental basis of the body. The body is earth. Reconnection of touch displaced unto earth. [i]Ground Touch[/i].
One of the few things he had to thanks his parents for. He may have rejected the life of a magus, but that trick was something he practiced so much it was second nature to him. In a few instants, he felt the walls and foundations of the building. Through vibrations, he could how many people were in the building as well as their physiologies and positions. Even after reconnecting his senses properly, he would not need to see anymore to move within this building.

He moved his belongings to his appartement, including a sizeable and very heavy box. Most humans wouldn’t be able to lift it, even less so through the stairs. But it was not him that did. There was something(someone?) else with him. His one true ally in this deadly ritual.
Jerome knew him for two days at that point, yet he barely tried to open any conversations. That is just the kind of man he was.

That box was meant for this ally however. It just needed to be set-up before it could be used.
He emptied one of the bedrooms from its furniture and placed the box at its center. Then he opened one of his suitcases. It revealed a large number of strips of paper, resembling eastern talismans, though they also used some western magecraft techniques. It was the produce of a young mage family living in a village close to London. Not very powerful, but reliable and discreet, and so were their products. They were seals meant to disperse magical energy in such a way that it would look like natural, ordinary mana. It also contained the excess so that one couldn’t notice the incongruence. A mystic code meant to hide magical power.
And he had [b]a lot[/b] of it to hide.

He plastered the seals all over the room. The walls, the ceiling, the shut windows, the floors and even the door, though he had to be careful to leave room to walk. The exterior window shutters were closed and the room was drowned in darkness. For the average mystic code, one or two of these would suffice, but it was anything but.
Once the room was fully sealed, he could deploy it. The covers taken off, the box turned out to be a large contraption with many interconnecting pipes. Multiple openings were available. From another suitcase, he pulled a few bottles. He had a rough Idea of the nature of their contents but didn’t know how to produce them himself. Thankfully, there was more than necessary for the duration of this ritual.

First bottle contained a thick jade colored fluid. He emptied it into the right pipe and it traveled to container at the center of the contraption. Through a small glass panel, one could see the color filing in. And with a closer look, they would notice the mass of flesh inside, floating inert in the strange liquid, connected by a number of tubes to the pipes which linked the whole contraption.
Then, a crimson powder which he poured into a reservoir on the side. Filtered, enriched nourishment for the lump.
Finally, two seemingly empty bottles. But in fact, they were filled with a special gas, meant to recreate Age of Heroes mana as accurately as possible, at least with the means of modern magi. A firestarter, a reminder of what the unrecognizable flesh used to be. Jerome placed them in their designated spots, where needles pierced through the caps.

The machine ready, he placed his palm upon a small panel where a magic circle was engraved. The gentle light of his od briefly illuminated room. Then, it was overtaken by the sound of air being pulled in on one end and the misty, musty gas coming out the other. The breath which started to fill the room was rich in a pure magical power, the kind which couldn’t normally be found outside of a leyline in the modern day.

[color=a0410d]“Here you go. This should keep you going much better than my od. Please use your spirit form to move in or out. The seals must not be disturbed at all, so no touching the door.”
[/color]

His words were addressed to the presence that accompanied him so far. And yet, Jerome didn’t even look in his direction. His tone was somewhat dismissive, but there was neither aggression nor fear. Just a long, cold distance.
Instead, he shuffled toward the wall connecting to the other room and extended his hand. The moment after he touched the wall, he was pulled into it. In an instant, he was in the other room, as if he had always been there.

He considered his bed for a few seconds. Then he pulled the sheets and put them on the ground beside. He took his clothes off and rolled himself in the blanket laying down.

[color=a0410d]“Should have taken a sleeping bag.”[/color] He muttered to himself.

[i]Ground Touch.[/i] It had been a while since the last time he did this, but he maintained the skill in his sleep. Doing so would make him aware of any vibration or temperature change in the building. This didn’t make sleeping easier, but Jerome was a cautious man sleeping in the middle of a soon-to-be warzone. 
Without even noticing, his fingers passed on his command seals. He didn’t even feel it due to [i]Ground Touch.[/i] This was nothing more than a subconscious action.
He didn’t feel safe, but that was nothing new to him. Rather, it was troublesome to him to trust another with his own life. Servants are powerful. Much more so than a modern magus. And Jerome was far less combat-ready than most well-trained modern magi.
Even so, he gave his partner free access to the Draconic Reactor. He wasn’t too familiar with the details, but it should be possible for a Servant to rely on it to maintain itself without a Master, at least for a while. To Jerome, this was a terribly risky but necessary bet. He [b]had[/b] to give himself all the chances he could take to face the other participants on equal footing, even if it meant giving a path for betrayal.

Eventually, slumber took him and his doubts.

Jerome woke up after the sun rose into the sky. At this time of year, he did not need to check the hour to know it was late to get-up. After quickly getting dressed, he headed for the exit.

[color=a0410d]“Let’s grab some grub and get familiar with the surrounding while we’re at it”
[/color]

He planned to set a large Bounded Field around the neighboring building. Something to warn him of the presence of anything with magical power, but large enough to not give away his appartement.
However, he had barely taken a few steps into the street when he noticed some powerful magical energy in the distance, towards one of the hills. Someone put their base in Tourbillon. Not surprising as it was home to a local leyline. What was surprising was the hostility. It seemed as if they were getting ready for a fight.

[color=a0410d]“In the middle of the day?! They’re not even trying to hide... 
-What do you think of that, Lancer?”[/color]

Since they arrived in Sion, Jerome didn’t address him much words, and those were the first which invited an answer.
Similarly, there was a spark in his eyes which was previously absent. A bit of confusion, an apparent disdain, some fear at the thought of the monsters which were about to clash. But this new light was something different, something that he didn’t feel in a long time. 
He was genuinely excited.