@Crusader Lord Wandering, Shinto Town Walking the earth again was a truly unique sensation. But more than that, the information he had received from the grail regarding the current state of music was far too important not to attempt to properly look into. Music had changed and developed with the passing of eras, with the shifting tides of times forcing limitations not only upon humans but also the world. What was once possible had been sealed, no longer freely available.
But even with the changes, humanity still found ways to rise and push forward once more. New musicians stepped up to the stage, and fulfilled the position of the one to raise the collective understanding of Music to now.
Thus, the portable music player he was listening to now gave him a wonderful experience of modern music as he let his thoughts wander with his feet.
Several Days Ago, Greece Appearing in a brilliant flash of light, Orpheus summoned his instrument into hand. Refusing to look up at his master, he began to tune the guitar-looking instrument, and began to strum. A slightly annoyed look appeared on his face as he gave another experimental pluck of a string and listened intently.
“So, this is what music has become?” Orpheus sighed and finally looked at his master. “Servant Caster, brought forth by your summons. I’ll tell you this much- don’t expect me to win the war for you. At best, we’ll be able to make it out alive. At worst, everything ends the first day.”
Noticing her gleaming eyes, he pulls out another instrument, this one a small flute. “Hmm. Would you like to learn how to play, child?” The offer is not one to be refused, from the looks on his face.
Spreading proper understanding and appreciation of music was just as important as playing it, after all.
Present Day A commotion stirs in the area. Shouts from passerby and the word of mouth spread rapidly. “Heracles is here!” they say. The crowd grows. Suspicions arise.
“Master, I’ll be checking this out. Enjoy your meal. And make sure you’re still practicing when I come back!” Orpheus sends to his master.
Following the movement of people, he lands upon the scene, instrument drawn. No matter what he'd find here, it would undoubtedly be well served with a bit of playing.
A barely conscious Tom nods his head in response to the question, as the Servant pulls him up- or perhaps that was simply his neck flopping about. Whichever the case, the subsequent rough handling jolts him back into consciousness, his body’s emergency instincts kicking in as he impacts against the wall, landing painfully on the cold floor, slowly trying to stem the bleeding as he tries to let his mind put itself back together.
But he is given no such reprieve.
The imposing, the royal, the heroic figure of the one he had summoned cuts through his shifting trains of thought and sears itself into his mind.
There is no more doubt in his mind. There is no other possibility who this could be.
The words his Servant are to say-
"Hercules!"
“-Hercules.”
A single tear falls from his working eye as he witnesses the final pose. His hands come together in raucous applause.
And then, confident in victory, and the relief that he may finally lose his debts, Tom falls to sleep.
“Hmm. With that, I think it should be done.” Dusting the chalk off from his hands, a one-eyed young man stood up and looked over the fruits of his work. A perfectly drawn circle, with numerous lines intercrossing in formations he didn’t properly understand but were copied exactly as the image he’d been provided by one of his most recent debtors, who had told him about this event as a way to pay off all of his debts at once.
Truthfully, he was hoping beyond belief that this time, this was real, and that his problems could finally be resolved, and that he could finally, finally, be gainfully employed!
“Um, fill fill fill fill fill fill fill?” In an attempt to read the smudged instructions written in completely illegible handwriting, Tom scratches his head in confusion. Shrugging his shoulders, he tosses away the instructions and picks up his catalyst. A faded and scratched cover for a videotape placed carefully within the center of the circle, as Tom Fruz began his ritual.
Slamming his head down onto the floor, transitioning into a dogeza pose within 0.3 seconds, he begins to chant fervently, “Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease-”
The chant continues, for several minutes, with Tom looking nowhere close to out of breath, but crescendoing higher and higher in volume and pitch. His voice does not give out, but the constant bowing and scraping, impacting his head against the floor, means that he is almost at the end of the ritual.
Personality: For Music, and only for Music. Orpheus is an irreverent person, blowing off others and rarely bothering to listen to them as he instead slips into playing his music. For him, there is no greater pleasure than to spread wonderful music to all, and to push and inspire others to gain even a fraction of the understanding he has with melody to experience it for themselves.
More than just playing music however, Orpheus believes that the world should accompany the music itself, to complete the experience. To him, music is not something simply listened to, but rather something you _live_. It is for this reason that Orpheus pushes situations and scenarios, so as to play the songs that come into his mind as he pleases, and for the result to be perfect.
Objective for the Grail: The Grand Tour (Incarnation).
Character Objectives: Give every Scene the Music it deserves, and to play as many songs as possible.
Weapon: All manner of instruments are Orpheus’ weapon, from a drum to a violin to even his voice. However, he generally plays on an instrument similar to a guitar in form.
Parameters:
STR: D END: D AGI: B MGI: A LCK: E
Class Skills: Territory Creation: C Creates a territory that is advantageous to himself. Such a space would be “a space where his music can be heard best”. Orpheus can construct this territory with alarming speed, and maintaining them costs virtually nothing on his part.
Item Creation: D+ The ability to create various tools by means of magic. Orpheus is quite terrible with making magical items, but if it is related to music, he can fashion it with much more ease.
Personal Skills:
Divinity: B The son of the head muse, Calliope and the god of the sun and prophecy, Apollo, Orpheus’ capacity as a Divine Spirit is quite high.
Protection of the Music God: EX A Skill indicating being given the divine protection of Muses, the goddesses of music. It is the capacity to recognize and identify any and all sorts of sound, and it makes it possible to perform a prodigious musical performance. By the blessings of the Muses, he gains a divine inspiration for music to play and the equivalent of High-Speed Divine Words for musical magecraft. In addition, it also grants a plus correction to all music. Orpheus, as the one to “perfect the lyre” that Apollo created, has this skill at the highest rank, showing his capabilities with music.
Battle Continuation: A+ The ability to continue combat, even after suffering a fatal wound. After being torn to pieces by the Maenads, Orpheus’ head and lyre floated down the river and continued to sing haunting songs, till it reached the sea and became enshrined as an oracle at the island of Lesbos, rivaling even the oracle to Apollo at Delphi, continuing until Apollo himself silenced the head. The full extent of this skill is displayed for Orpheus playing music even when he should no longer possibly be able to.
Noble Phantasm:
Name: Orphic Rhapsodies
Title: Let My Song Be Heard Unto All
Rank: A
NP Type:
Range: Within his own Territory
Maximum Number of Targets: All who have ears to hear, and those who do not
Description: The crystallization of Orpheus’ legends of his musical prowess. Normally a passive NP, it works as an enhancer for all of Orpheus’ lyrical efforts, allowing him to overpower low-level mental resistances of servants with ease in addition to a plus correction to musical magecraft.
However, once he invokes the true name of his Noble Phantasm within his territory, his music returns once more to its full potential. The limits of the Age of Man are completely ignored with regard to “music”, and within the bounds of his territory the full capability of Orpheus the Musician displays itself. As he plays, his Music speaks to all, and all follow with his music.
Objective for the Grail: Pass college. Pay off debts.
Character Objectives: Pass college. Pay off debts.
Personality: Tom is a bright, cheery, outgoing person who isn’t hesitant to help others. Some would call his nature kind, helpful, and compassionate. A smarter person would call him naive, gullible, and a pushover. His personality does not win him friends, rather, it has caused many a parasite and conman to latch onto him, smelling blood in the water.
However, only the well-off can afford to be charitable. Tom has grown desensitized to the things he has had to do to stay alive and ahead of his debtors, many of which would normally be entirely unthinkable for him. He cares for his ultimate well-being very much, and despite the fact that this is not the route he wishes he was forced upon, it is the one he must walk.
Due to how he has lived so far he would be described as eccentric, with a skillset and common sense slightly removed from the norm. He failed calculus, but could quite easily tell you whether or not the money you had was counterfeit.
Biography: When a child is born, the situation is usually one that is to be celebrated. The birth of a new life, bringing forth a new soul into the world, and more.
Tom Fruz began life with a debt of $30,000. The total debt he owes has never gone below that amount in his life. Indeed, the day of his birth was the day where Tom had the least money to pay back in his life. Due to extremely poor financial decisions and general decisions on the part of his parents, Tom was saddled with ever more debts and with little way out. As soon as he was capable, he began searching for any way to scrimp money, find illegal work, and generally make a positive return on money from his efforts. Due to this he gained a great capability for performing menial labor and extreme efficiency at all his tasks in order to jump from one child sweatshop to the next.
It was during one stint as a ghostwriter that Tom was introduced to the moonlit world. A desperate student of the Clocktower with an essay due fast and more money than sense, came looking for a quick-fix solution to his problems and stumbled upon the services Tom was working for. In order to properly understand a large amount of the concepts that was being written about, Tom had his circuits properly opened and taught a small amount of simple magecraft. Unfortunately due to a lack of proper papers to cite and being forced to rely on some other papers the Clocktower student had gotten their own hands on by digging through the trash, the essay he wrote inevitably failed and the angry student ended up resulting in him losing more money than he was paid for the commission and kicked out from the agency.
After his induction into the supernatural, Tom himself did not experience any great change- though now, the scammers of the moonlit world found themselves a new target. He fell for more tricks, amassed greater debt, and slipped further and further down in academics as he spent most of his days perfecting ways to avoid and hide from debt collectors and unable to properly study or attend classes to hand in homework and take exams.
Upon becoming of age, his parents dumped all of their outstanding debts onto him and vanished, leaving him alone and incapable of properly holding off all the hounds baying for his blood. Left with no options, he decided to have his organs sold on the black market, returning a nice amount of money and nearly dying from the successive operations, able to pay off some debts a decent amount in order to prevent everything from crashing down on his head.
However, due to being unable to find a well-paying job, in order to survive from month to month he has found himself paying off debts owed to some by creating new debts with others, fueling an endless, terrifying cycle that has culminated in him hearing about the Holy Grail War and deciding if there was anything that could solve his debts, it would be a literal wish-granter. He dreams of being able to finish college and land a comfortable, honest job to live the rest of his days out in peace.
One Liver lobe One Kidney One part of lung Lots of blood Pancreas Part of intestines One eye
---
Magic Circuit Switch: Money burning.
Number of Magic Circuits: D
Quality of Magic Circuits: E
---
Elemental Affinity: Fire
Magecraft: General Magecraft: Passes the bare minimum standard for competence. He can activate his circuits I guess?
Magic Crest: Magic Crest? Is that something you have to pay hidden subscriber fees for?
Equipment: -A large amount of hard cash. They are all clearly loans. -A knife, pickpocketed from a yakuza he had a run-in with at the airport.
Mystic Codes:
Glove of Midas: A questionable mystic code sold to Tom by an exiled American magus. It performs a transmutation of the touched object into gold, however, the formula used for the transmutation was one that had stringent copyrights attached to it. As such, no matter how much gold Tom makes with this, he would legally be unable to sell it off.
Exceptional Benefit: Contacts: A very very persistent caller is ignored once again. The phone number now takes up space as the only number listed on his recent calls list. He’ll pay them back. Probably. But in the meantime he could totally ask for more money because he paid off his loans on that one bank with the loans from this bank!
By reaching out to a quite a few loaners, including quite shady ones that definitely do not operate legally, Tom has amassed a network of people within numerous industries- all revolving around him, and more specifically, the debts he owes them. Sometimes he can purchase a difficult to obtain item for them, but mostly he finds this large network allows him to sell things that he otherwise wouldn’t normally be able to.
Name: Orpheus
Title(s): The Greatest Musician
Class: Caster
Gender: Male
Attribute:
Alignment: Chaotic Music
Personality: For Music, and only for Music. Orpheus is an irreverent person, blowing off others and rarely bothering to listen to them as he instead slips into playing his music. For him, there is no greater pleasure than to spread wonderful music to all, and to push and inspire others to gain even a fraction of the understanding he has with melody to experience it for themselves.
More than just playing music however, Orpheus believes that the world should accompany the music itself, to complete the experience. To him, music is not something simply listened to, but rather something you _live_. It is for this reason that Orpheus pushes situations and scenarios, so as to play the songs that come into his mind as he pleases, and for the result to be perfect.
Objective for the Grail: The Grand Tour (Incarnation).
Character Objectives: Give every Scene the Music it deserves, and to play as many songs as possible.
Weapon: All manner of instruments are Orpheus’ weapon, from a drum to a violin to even his voice. However, he generally plays on an instrument similar to a guitar in form.
Parameters:
STR: D END: D AGI: B MGI: A LCK: E
Class Skills: Territory Creation: C Creates a territory that is advantageous to himself. Such a space would be “a space where his music can be heard best”. Orpheus can construct this territory with alarming speed, and maintaining them costs virtually nothing on his part.
Item Creation: D+ The ability to create various tools by means of magic. Orpheus is quite terrible with making magical items, but if it is related to music, he can fashion it with much more ease.
Personal Skills:
Divinity: B The son of the head muse, Calliope and the god of the sun and prophecy, Apollo, Orpheus’ capacity as a Divine Spirit is quite high.
Protection of the Music God: EX A Skill indicating being given the divine protection of Muses, the goddesses of music. It is the capacity to recognize and identify any and all sorts of sound, and it makes it possible to perform a prodigious musical performance. By the blessings of the Muses, he gains a divine inspiration for music to play and the equivalent of High-Speed Divine Words for musical magecraft. In addition, it also grants a plus correction to all music. Orpheus, as the one to “perfect the lyre” that Apollo created, has this skill at the highest rank, showing his capabilities with music.
Battle Continuation: A+ The ability to continue combat, even after suffering a fatal wound. After being torn to pieces by the Maenads, Orpheus’ head and lyre floated down the river and continued to sing haunting songs, till it reached the sea and became enshrined as an oracle at the island of Lesbos, rivaling even the oracle to Apollo at Delphi, continuing until Apollo himself silenced the head. The full extent of this skill is displayed for Orpheus playing music even when he should no longer possibly be able to.
Disengage: A- Additional skill granted by Staging Ground. The ability to withdraw from battle. Returns disadvantageous conditions back to their initial state. The - correction takes effect if retreating with another. Orpheus is, in the end, a successful wanderer from the Underworld, but his goal failed at the last step.
Noble Phantasm:
Name: Orphic Rhapsodies
Title: Let My Song Be Heard Unto All
Rank: A
NP Type:
Range: Within his own Territory
Maximum Number of Targets: All who have ears to hear, and those who do not
Description: The crystallization of Orpheus’ legends of his musical prowess. Normally a passive NP, it works as an enhancer for all of Orpheus’ lyrical efforts, allowing him to overpower low-level mental resistances of servants with ease in addition to a plus correction to musical magecraft.
However, once he invokes the true name of his Noble Phantasm within his territory, his music returns once more to its full potential. The limits of the Age of Man are completely ignored with regard to “music”, and within the bounds of his territory the full capability of Orpheus the Musician displays itself. As he plays, his Music speaks to all, and all follow with his music.
Name: Listen, O Swine, And Be Proper
Title: Eat Fruit, Not Men
Rank: A
NP Type: Anti-Anti-Civilization
Range: Within his own Territory
Maximum Number of Targets: 1-999
Description: An additional Noble Phantasm granted by Orpheus’ Staging Ground. Music is something that can only be permitted to flourish within the bounds of Civilization, Civilization must prosper for there to be Music. As one who domesticated beasts and changed a group of men from cannibals to those who subsisted off the earth to enforcing communities and laws, Orpheus holds the capability to bring forth Civilization to others in places where it would otherwise be lacking or faltering. Those who would tear it down or rip it away will find themselves unable to do so in the face of his songs.
Objective for the Grail: Pass college. Pay off debts.
Character Objectives: Pass college. Pay off debts.
Personality: Tom is a bright, cheery, outgoing person who isn’t hesitant to help others. Some would call his nature kind, helpful, and compassionate. A smarter person would call him naive, gullible, and a pushover. His personality does not win him friends, rather, it has caused many a parasite and conman to latch onto him, smelling blood in the water.
However, only the well-off can afford to be charitable. Tom has grown desensitized to the things he has had to do to stay alive and ahead of his debtors, many of which would normally be entirely unthinkable for him. He cares for his ultimate well-being very much, and despite the fact that this is not the route he wishes he was forced upon, it is the one he must walk.
Due to how he has lived so far he would be described as eccentric, with a skillset and common sense slightly removed from the norm. He failed calculus, but could quite easily tell you whether or not the money you had was counterfeit.
Biography: When a child is born, the situation is usually one that is to be celebrated. The birth of a new life, bringing forth a new soul into the world, and more.
Tom Fruz began life with a debt of $30,000. The total debt he owes has never gone below that amount in his life. Indeed, the day of his birth was the day where Tom had the least money to pay back in his life. Due to extremely poor financial decisions and general decisions on the part of his parents, Tom was saddled with ever more debts and with little way out. As soon as he was capable, he began searching for any way to scrimp money, find illegal work, and generally make a positive return on money from his efforts. Due to this he gained a great capability for performing menial labor and extreme efficiency at all his tasks in order to jump from one child sweatshop to the next.
It was during one stint as a ghostwriter that Tom was introduced to the moonlit world. A desperate student of the Clocktower with an essay due fast and more money than sense, came looking for a quick-fix solution to his problems and stumbled upon the services Tom was working for. In order to properly understand a large amount of the concepts that was being written about, Tom had his circuits properly opened and taught a small amount of simple magecraft. Unfortunately due to a lack of proper papers to cite and being forced to rely on some other papers the Clocktower student had gotten their own hands on by digging through the trash, the essay he wrote inevitably failed and the angry student ended up resulting in him losing more money than he was paid for the commission and kicked out from the agency.
After his induction into the supernatural, Tom himself did not experience any great change- though now, the scammers of the moonlit world found themselves a new target. He fell for more tricks, amassed greater debt, and slipped further and further down in academics as he spent most of his days perfecting ways to avoid and hide from debt collectors and unable to properly study or attend classes to hand in homework and take exams.
Upon becoming of age, his parents dumped all of their outstanding debts onto him and vanished, leaving him alone and incapable of properly holding off all the hounds baying for his blood. Left with no options, he decided to have his organs sold on the black market, returning a nice amount of money and nearly dying from the successive operations, able to pay off some debts a decent amount in order to prevent everything from crashing down on his head.
However, due to being unable to find a well-paying job, in order to survive from month to month he has found himself paying off debts owed to some by creating new debts with others, fueling an endless, terrifying cycle that has culminated in him hearing about the Holy Grail War and deciding if there was anything that could solve his debts, it would be a literal wish-granter. He dreams of being able to finish college and land a comfortable, honest job to live the rest of his days out in peace.
One Liver lobe One Kidney One part of lung Lots of blood Pancreas Part of intestines One eye
---
Magic Circuit Switch: Money burning.
Number of Magic Circuits: D
Quality of Magic Circuits: E
---
Elemental Affinity: Fire
Magecraft: General Magecraft: Passes the bare minimum standard for competence. He can activate his circuits I guess?
Magic Crest: Magic Crest? Is that something you have to pay hidden subscriber fees for?
Equipment: -A large amount of hard cash. They are all clearly loans. -A knife, pickpocketed from a yakuza he had a run-in with at the airport.
Mystic Codes:
Glove of Midas: A questionable mystic code sold to Tom by an exiled American magus. It performs a transmutation of the touched object into gold, however, the formula used for the transmutation was one that had stringent copyrights attached to it. As such, no matter how much gold Tom makes with this, he would legally be unable to sell it off.
Exceptional Benefit: Contacts: A very very persistent caller is ignored once again. The phone number now takes up space as the only number listed on his recent calls list. He’ll pay them back. Probably. But in the meantime he could totally ask for more money because he paid off his loans on that one bank with the loans from this bank!
By reaching out to a quite a few loaners, including quite shady ones that definitely do not operate legally, Tom has amassed a network of people within numerous industries- all revolving around him, and more specifically, the debts he owes them. Sometimes he can purchase a difficult to obtain item for them, but mostly he finds this large network allows him to sell things that he otherwise wouldn’t normally be able to.
The words the beasts said were of no consequence. Their actions, however, did.
Simplistic tactics, yet effective all the same. Distract, Delay, Divide. With their greater numbers, a far more feasible and effective strategy than if only two were to try it.
He would just have to work a little harder to deal with this.
The one trying to get between him and Fran. The two trying to hold him down. Lightning flashed, as the power from his hands struck out in arcs, countless bolts flashing towards the two trying to drag Jack down, as the one in between him and Fran took a fist directly to the face.
The beasts rejected the Human Order, did they? If blades and weapons of Civilization were to be rejected, then the lightning of Creation, of the primordial creation of life, should sting.
Two more. They moved too fast, quick enough to reach the domain of Servants, both going toward Fran. Mid-attack, he was forced to let them go, unable to strike them as he struck the others.
A scream tore itself from his throat, as he watched Fran face them down.
Fran Riverside
Close. Too close. Both the monsters, and Jack.
Limited options.
-no perfect choices.
A bad choice, then. For her perhaps, but for her Jack…
The right one.
As the beasts moved, she did as well.
She knew he’d understand.
She just wished-
Jack Riverside
-He saw her eyes.
One last time then.
A running retreat. Step back.
His arm reached out.
If only there was another path. If only he was greater. If only he had been-
Those thoughts he had thought throughout the night disappeared as he affirmed his resolve.
“THEFT OF THE HEAVENS!”
That blinding light.
It hid a tear.
-
“Hey, buddy.” Space had been made, a Disengaging maneuver. A small retreat for a better position with Fran in his arms
“A thief doesn’t kill in revenge. My blade is meant for heists, not for hatred.” Fran’s body shimmers, and begins to fade.
“But now, now I don’t care. And besides...this isn’t my weapon.”
The Bridal Chest swings, and lightning flashes with it.
Racing alongside the riverbank, Jack gave his legs a burst of speed, unhesitating and sure of where to head. His connection to Fran was something that went beyond even the bond of a Master and a Servant, it was the connection of a piece of one’s soul to the whole. As his Noble Phantasm, Fran was something he could locate and run towards.
Make it in time.
He had to make it.
Faster.
Faster!
Fran Riverside
She was running.
Why wouldn’t she be running? The world was coming to an end around her.
Make it to the port. Make it there, and she could leave. Leave this hellhole and get to a new life.
So why?
Why was she hesitating?
“FRAN!”
Ah.
Yes.
Looking back, she saw the figure of Jack approaching at rapid speeds. Calling out to her as he ran with a desperation she’d never seen or felt from him before.
Jack. Her lover. Her savior. Murderer. Thief.
But in the end, someone who made a promise to her. A promise that she would call on now, to escape, to run away together-
Her voice caught in her throat. His hands. What had happened to his hands?
Stopping in front of her, Jack moved and wrapped her up in a hug, strong and desperate and full of panic. The hug was brief, as Jack moved back and looked her straight in the eye and spoke.
“Fran. We can’t run. If we run, we’ll escape for a short while- but it won’t mean we’ll be safe. What happens after this place falls? The rest of the world follows.” Jack’s face looked like he had just been forced to swallow a bitter pill, and had been told it would have decent odds of killing him as much as it did curing any ails he had.
“Which means we’ve only got one option. We have to stand here, stand now and help the others who remain here to take it on. It’s the best option we have. If I could get us out of here safely, trust me, I’d wish for nothing more than to ensure you’d be safe. But in this case, that means stopping this threat. Here. We’d never be safe if we ran.”
“We’d never be able to settle down.”
His words stung at her. When he’d promised to make her happy, he’d known. He’d known what happened, what he’d done. And now, he was here, telling him she couldn’t run away, had to fight this-
“I love you Fran.”
She-
“I love you, and this threat won’t take you away from me.”
He turned on his heel, facing the gathered monsters that were approaching them. A blade materialized, blade pointed into the ground, hilt facing the sky. Jack reached out- winced and flinched. His hands. He’d forgotten-
Jack grit his teeth. He leaned down, picking up the blade with his teeth. Desperation. But the look in his eyes, it said he would not stop. He would not back down.
For her.
Jack must have noticed her doubts. He gave her a smile.
There was only one way to properly describe the current situation.
A complete and utter clusterfuck.
The information she had heard from her fox that was still at the meeting had solidified her understanding that everything was currently going to hell right now.
Damnit. Her purpose here had been to come and observe- simply to learn and try and understand what the function of the Summoning Ritual was like.
But now, everyone was under siege. Everyone was under fire, and they couldn’t be expected to give aid to all others in there state.
Damnit.
“If anyone is able to spare forces for the Swamp in the Southern Moor, then it is possible that my Servant, combining forces with others, could hold off greater forces using the advantage of our own terrain and territory.” She grimaced as she prepared for the next part.
“We are one of the pairs closest to ground zero. Once a method to properly deal with the enemies has been discovered and applied, the territory can be moved to the surrounding area in Shinto in order to buy as much time for people who will work on bolstering the seal while close to it. With more forces, we could likely hold off more. As for now, we will be holding our own here. End Communications.”
There was no time.
“Rider, you know what to do. Defend.”
The oni she had made would be assisting him. She doubted it would be enough.
The entry of another being into the bar pings off Jack’s last nerve. Slowly, steadily, he had been gaining a sense of ominous events. A feeling of doom.
A sensation of the end of the World.
There exist three other beings besides himself in the bar. One, the newcomer. The catalyst, but not the cause. Another, a patron like me, who came in roughly at the same time. Free from blame.
Lastly. The culprit of this damnable sensation of dread. The one he might’ve looked more closely at, kept a closer eye on, maybe if he-
No. Hands or no, he knew better. He knew his limits, he knew “what kind of heroic spirit” he was, and he knew, most importantly, that this sensation was not something ‘that could be beaten alone’.
There was no time to speak. There was no chance to breathe. There was only a sliver of a moment in which action could allay ruin, could prevent chaos.
Jack was already prepared to move. The sinking feeling had made him leave his chair.
Scooping up the newcomer and the fellow patron so that both were in the crook of his arms, he took off, barreling through the door with his enchanted boots and Fleeing from the bar with all his might.
Why did he grab them? Why not escape alive, guaranteed, on his own?
Damnit, he didn’t know. He just knew it was what he -should- do. It was the course of action that a Hero would take.
But all thoughts left him as he felt the roar behind him.
The bar was gone. The bartender was gone. Hope was gone.
And in its place stood a Beast.
“RUN!” Jack yelled at both of the people he had dragged out of the bar, now out of his hold. “Find everyone else! We can’t fight this alone!”
With his piece said, Jack vanished as he dashed across the field.
