-Day 0-
Castle Urquhart
-10:07 PM September 23rd, 2017
Albert felt his spine crack under the force of the blow which lifted him off his feet. Had he been hit? Had Saber caught up to him?
Panicked, he looked up and saw the awesome golden figure from before. Berserker. He was one of theirs, but he wasn't sure if he'd been more comfortable staring down Ayondale than he was cradled in the arms of a madman. Still, it seemed he could speak. Perhaps he was still a little bit sane.
"No," Albert coughed. "No I don't zink so. Zey're-"
Dead.The idea of it hit him almost as hard as Berserker had. Suddenly, he couldn't find any words to say. It was just...
"Over..." Albert whispered. "It's over, Berserker. We're making a full retreat. Zere's... nozing else we can do."
Coughing uncontrollably at the stinging sensation in his lungs that was no doubt the product of inhaling the noxious gas, Ayondale slashed at the red mist with his saber-cane, trying to part it like smoke at a campfire. Eventually he wandered out, a thin trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth a reminder of how close he'd just come to death.
Ayondale watched the receding figures of the students and their Servants as they went, his fingers clenched tight around his right hand in a bone-crushing rictus grip. He bit his lip hard. Every action, every bit of body langauge projecting off of him at that moment screamed
"KILL KILL KILL I'LL KILL THOSE SHITTY KIDS!"Two dual rationalities were at war inside him. The first was a perfectionist. He wouldn't accept failure. Even an inch, even a centimeter of ground lost because of these stupid little roadbumps was an unacceptable loss that cost him dearly. And a Command Seal... to lose a
Command Seal... he'd kill them. He'd track them all down and kill them. Slowly, violently, mutilating and defiling every inch of their flesh before reviving them to do it all over again, then turning the resultant lump of destroyed meat into yet more cannon fodder for his legions of the Dead. He'd extract every last bit of pain and remorse he could from them before he'd let them rest. That part of him wanted to send Richard after them right now, to finish what he'd started. He'd kill them
now, and make things right again.
The other part of him was a realist who knew that was a mistake. It knew that he was lucky to have completed their objective having only lost a single Command Seal, given the odds they faced. It knew sending Richard after them was a suicide mission. He had them scared. They wouldn't interfere again, at least not tonight. Sending Richard after them to intentionally provoke them again would end with the illusion of his invincibility being shattered, and Richard being overpowered. That would be the end of Ayondale's Grail War, regardless of whether or not they succeeded in activating the backup.
The two clashing ideals bounced around in his head, colliding furiously. But in the end, only one could win. And Arieh Ayondale hadn't gotten to where he was now by letting his baser impulses rule him like he was some sort of wild animal. The children could wait. He could focus on his personal pleasures another time. Right now he had a job to do, something that would need to be done if he was to ascend to even greater heights of prestige, power and esteem. Feelings could not be allowed to interfere with what was necessary for him to succeed in the world.
But still, he kept that dark idea tucked away, just in case. There wasn't any time for it now, but later, perhaps. Maybe later.
Richard, battered and broken, walked nonetheless confidently up the hill towards Ayondale, planting the spear he'd stolen from Lancer into the ground. It disappeared in a wisp of smoke or perhaps mist, particles dissolving into nothing as the spiritual body of the weapon returned to its rightful owner. Richard grinned, perhaps his way of saying "I'd bow if I could, but..."
"My apologies, Arieh. It appears my negligence has forced you to waste a Command Seal," he said.
"Bah," Ayondale said, dismissing the thought. "It wasn't
your fault, Richard. It was those damn kids. Filthy little rats made me waste something so precious..."
The professor sighed.
"I suppose it's an acceptable price to pay, given what we've accomplished here tonight. You fought off six Servants all at once and you still forced them to flee. Not many could claim that, Richard. You did well."
"Your words honor me, Arieh," Saber said, attempting a bow. More blood leaked from the gaping hole in his chest, splashing to the ground at his feet. "... Could I possibly ask you to help fix me up? This state of affairs is rather embarrassing."
Ayondale nodded at the homunculus, just now returning from her assigned task. She dutifully hurried over to Richard, and began to heal him. The wound showed no obvious signs of closing (that would take time), but it at least stopped bleeding. That would do, for now.
Richard squirmed, obviously discomforted by the homunculus' presence. Ayondale, on the other hand, observed the results of the battle.
Groans could be heard coming from the Clocktower's scattered forces, along with many cries of pain and requests for medical assistance. Mutilated corpses in various states of dismemberment were littered about like autumn leaves, coloring the grounds a bright red. Many of the magi who had not died in the attack or from exposure to the filth-creature's toxic gas were now examining the red marks on the backs of their necks, poking and prodding at them as they attempted to analyze what kind of magic was at work. Their voices were high-pitched and quiet. The presence of the crosses clearly frightened them.
Ayondale sighed. "Richard, one more thing. Before you take your well-deserved rest, could you do me a favor and help...
clean this place up? These men have served their purpose."
The few who heard him looked up in fear and outrage, realizing immediately what he meant. Ayondale didn't care. The simple fact of the matter was, no one but him could be allowed to know the true location of the Greater Grail which they had come here to seek, nor could they become privvy to some of its many additional functions, a few of which had been added by Ayondale himself.
Richard rose, walking gratefully away from the homunculus. The crowd of wounded magi backed away as the Saber-class Servant drew his sword, but none ran. They didn't want to die, but what other choice did they have? In their hearts and minds they'd already given up on fighting him. Climbing a wall like that was like trying to stop the sun from setting. What was the point?
"Watch and witness. This is the folly of your pride."
The mysterious cross-shaped marks on the back of their necks glowed briefly with bright red light. Without so much as a single flick of his sword, the heads of every magi in the vicinity rolled to the ground, severely neatly at the base of the neck. Richard tucked his sword away back into his sheath, and Ayondale sighed, exasperated.
"Must it always be the head? Can't you kill them in some other way? It makes fashioning zombies out of them much more difficult."
"I'm afraid not," Richard said as he sat next to the homunculus again, ready to resume his healing. "That is simply the nature of my skill, King's Crusade. My Noble Phantasm wouldn't work without it. You could say it serves as a... reminder, of sorts."
"Of the massacre?"
"Of my place in history. This is what I am remembered for, Arieh. And for good reason."
That answer seeming to satisfy him, Arieh Ayondale turned away from his Servant and approached the water's edge. He stared at his own reflection in the peaty water and issued an order to what little remained of his skeletal forces.
"Begin removing the bodies from the site at once. That includes the security guards, if they aren't still alive. If they are, kill them, and get their bodies ready for processing just like the others. I need... four, five, six, seven...
eight of you to form a raft. Ferry me out to the middle of the loch, approximately fifty meters from the banks of the castle."
They obeyed him without question, as they hadn't even the most basic components of a mind with which to question his orders. Unlike the Dead, these creatures were more like golems, inanimate
things given life by magic. They had a human shape, but they'd never once been truly alive.
Bones cracked as the skeletons piled on top of each other, dislocating and shifting their constituent pieces to fit into new and more useful shapes. Eventually they formed the caricature of a raft, a basic construct with room and bouyancy enough to hold one person. Ayondale stepped aboard their backs and snapped his fingers. The raft departed outwards, its arms pushing it through the water like the swimming motions of a giant turtle.
The emergency backup was one of many functions Ayondale had considered ditching when he was busy repairing and making alterations to the Grail. After all, fourteen Servants? Really? It had seemed superfluous and unnecessary back then, even if you could arrange the conditions necessary to use it, but now that he needed it, he appreciated his own foresight in keeping it around. Just in case just such a thing were to happen.
The raft halted its sudden, jerky movements and drifted to a stop, the skeletons all chattering in the cold loch water like a man in desperate need of a sweater. This wasn't a reaction to the temperature however, but the concentration of ambient mana in the water. It was beneath them now.
Ayondale held out his hand, and a massive object from deep beneath the loch's placid waters began to rise, the surface swelling as it ascended. The skeletons had to grip his legs just to keep him from falling off the raft once the gargantuan thing broke the surface, sending waves cascading all the way back to the shoreline as it settled in the water. The object, held aloft by a small island of bog zombies, was roughly spherical, and covered in peat, measuring ten meters across at least. While it appeared static in its construction, it glowed in the dark like a dim lightbulb, and seemed to pulse with a twisted sort of life all its own, like an egg kept permanently on the verge of hatching. In fact a crack had already appeared on its surface, leaking some of the brilliant light that was being kept hidden inside by its thick shell.
Ayondale removed his glove, and the crack widened fractionally, the spiderweb pattern of fractures growing slightly more complex as it did so. A hole, a tiny hole, opened at the center, and an arm emerged from within, clawing its way out through the tiny aperture. But perhaps the word "arm" could be taken as a bit misleading. It had the appearance of a human limb, yes, but it had been blackened like charcoal, its dark shape outlined by a silhouette of light that seemed to come from within, and its every feature seemed grotesquely exaggerated. The length of the arm, the wizened, claw-like fingernails, the spiderlike digits that had more joints than any human hand should. They all combined to give this thing an air of Frankensteinian horror, like it had been mangled, smashed, and inexpertly stitched back together by a madman with no knowledge of human anatomy.
At first it floundered, slapping the walls of its prison like a newborn trying to escape, before it took notice of Ayondale's presence through some sort of invisible eye or other sense and slowly stretched out across the water to offer its hand to him. The two touched, Ayondale's fingers clasping the gangly phalanges of the phantom limb. He began to speak.
"Invoke Greater Grail summoning system. Accessing files... request access to Heaven's Feel subroutines 1-999. Authorization code: ASWANG. Authorization code... accepted. Begin activation of Holy Grail emergency backup system. The seven must now become fourteen. Allocating additional Command Seals... selecting additional Masters. Cancel. Manually input the seven new Masters. Input accepted... Holy Grail emergency backup system engaged. Dispatching observer. Process complete. Would you like to access any other files Y/N? Now closing Greater Grail admin control panel. Your new settings will come into effect in 10, 9, 8-"
Ayondale pulled his hand back, and the grotesque black limb retracted back into the Holy Grail's shell-like exterior. The artifact, still counting down, began to sink back into the water, accompanied by the groans of the accursed damned souls condemned to carry its weight. Arieh Ayondale and his craft retreated, making their way back to the loch's edge, and the comfort of solid ground.
Sighing, Ayondale covered the hand bearing his Command Seals with its glove once more, and tapped the small white trinket he wore as an earring. The item was a small communication type Mystic Code, an Inuit charm made of carved bone meant to communicate with those in possession of the item's matching partner or partners.
"This is Ayondale. Are you all on standby? Yes, the recovery operation was a success. You may now proceed. Summon your Servants at once, and meet me at Aldourie Castle by sunrise. I
expect you all to be punctual. That includes you, Orval. Ayondale out."
The professor stepped off the raft and let the skeletons simply sink to the bottom, releasing his control over them. Back on shore, Richard and the girl homunculus were waiting for him.
The Deacon Arms Tavern
11:34 PM September 23rd, 2017
Albert rinsed his face off underneath the cold tap, dried blood mixing with the water. His dirty, blood-speckled shirt hung on the rack just a few feet away, waiting to be cleansed of incriminating evidence. Of any reminders of what they'd just been through. Not that he needed one.
He turned the knob on the faucet, stopping the flow. For a moment he did nothing but stare at the retreating trails of red stain seeping slowly into the drainpipes. Then he lashed out, slamming his fist into the wall next to the medicine cabinet. Stupid. Stupid stupid
stupid. How had he not noticed? How had none of them noticed?! Had it never occurred to him that a mage as experienced as Ayondale might have a way to hide himself from familiars? Stupid! He was so freaking
stupid!And... he'd gotten those kids killed.
Stop it, he reprimanded himself harshly.
Zat was not your fault. Zey knew the risks. Blaming yourself for somezing zat bastard did is only going to distract you. Zis changes nozing.
We are still going to fight. And we are still going to make Ayondale pay for what 'e's done. Zis just adding more fuel to ze fire.He looked at himself in the mirror, his wet, night-black hair stuck to his face. But the others might not see it that way. They might still want to back out, as if any of them had that option anymore. That Servant... he had a presence that terrified the living piss out of you. It was easy to ask yourself when looking at him "can we really win?" The man had died and come back like a zombie, for chrissakes! He wouldn't be surprised if that had caused any of their number to give up hope of beating him. Albert was not of that same mindset, but it was easy to see why someone might be.
He dried himself off and picked up the spare shirt he'd brought into the bathroom with him. They were all waiting for him out there, silently conversing with their Servants in their respective rooms. It had been quite a stroke of luck for them to have found a hotel in Inverness owned by one of Leon's family friends. Well, it was more like a bar and tavern than a proper hotel, but it served their purposes adequately. It was a small, hard-to-find hole in the wall run by a man on the inside who had ears everywhere, and knowledge of mage society. At least that's what Leon had assured him back in England. The man he'd met just an hour ago seemed barely cognizant of his surroundings through the haze of cigar smoke and cheap liquor that surrounded him. He'd promised them they could have their run of the place, and had even closed up shop early for them, but it was the kind of hospitality that made you wonder if they'd still be in such a generous and giving mood the next morning.
Which is why he needed to speak to Leon. Albert had to talk with him about what had happened during the summoning, to reassure him it hadn't been anything he'd done. Knowing Leon, that was probably what he was thinking right now. That it was a failure on his part. Albert would need to sternly correct him on that. That, and he needed his assurance that this man was worth trusting. He'd been given that promise once, but after seeing what he had of the owner, he felt like he needed it again.
Albert stuck his head into the new shirt, wriggling to see through the hole, before he paused with the shirt halfway down his midriff. He decided instead to take off the shirt, and started running a hot bath. He doubted any one of them would complain. After what had happened to them tonight, they'd all want a little time to themselves to think, and to connect with their new Servants.
Speaking of which...
Oi, Assassin, he said, somewhat sullenly.
You zere? Zere are some zings I zink we need to discuss.
