Master Stirner Cartisius
(North Miyama, A Homely Hotel Room)
A purple-clad foot collided with the edge of the hotel room bed as it swung into place, sending a pained shudder through its owner's small body, one of his crutches looking as if it were about to lose balance, only to regain it at the last second. His pale hands gripped onto the leather sealed pouch as he threatened to fall, the powdery grey contents dusting out into the air a little as he did an odd shuffle to refind his footing. Singular.
"
Ah... ow."
Lord Cartisius did not have the poise of a Lord. In part because of his absent limb- which could potentially be fixed with something like a puppet leg, something which has yet to happen,- in part because of his personality. Still, he was a growing and competent magus in his own right despite that, and it was that fact he hoped to use to see himself through the war. He had questions, ones which he had not found answers to back home in Europe, not with the friends of his family nor the Professors at the Clocktower. There was a void in knowledge, one which he needed to fill.
The (Supposedly) Omnipotent Wish-granting Device could provide him with the means to fill that void of knowledge. A simple request for knowledge would undoubtedly be easy for something which is presented as omnipotent. If only he thought it to be so easy; there were two 'Holy Grail Wars' prior to the one he was participating in, and the result of these seemed to not yield and notable result - not that he would be able to tell immediately, given the nature of omnipotence - but there would be a record of something, somewhere. Stirner Cartisius did not believe the Grail could grant him his wish, and as such his goal was twofold, to make this hopeful venture more 'worth it' in his eyes.
He did not desire power, or to change the world. He just wanted to know if the system set up by the families actually worked as intended. If he survived to the end, and indeed got to observe the results of his own wish, he would make note of it. He had left quite the trail of his own research into the void of knowledge, so the sudden influx of knowledge would indeed be evidence of sorts for the Grail System.
The research of his mother was largely an enigma to most, even the 'allies' of their family and those she spent time under in her youth. All he had to go off of was the result of her experiments, her and his leg vanishing, along with the room she was conducting the experiment in. Spacial transport maybe? Different worlds? It wasn't out of the realms of possibility, but recreating it in any safe manner had not yielded any good results, or even a result at all.
Stirner frowned as his thoughts dwelled on the failure of his mother. It had made life... harder, to say the least. It was a great shame for the life's work of a magus to backfire as violently as it had on his mother, and for it to also damage her heir in the process was nothing short of an idiotic oversight - hubris. Where the Cartisius family was generally viewed in a favorable light by the community at large, there was something of a funny stain on them now.
He hated thinking about life in such a way. Being a political animal, moving as if alliances and fake friendships were the way of the world, but it was expected of him as the head of his family. He wanted a life of researched above all else, the joy of turning the pages of a new academic piece was among the highest for him. Talking about such matters, the exchange of ideas, came second. Formulating new ideas from the collision of individual truths and findings came third.
To be a magus was not that. Sometimes it could be, but the rest of the time it was like dancing on a knifes edge, and his mother had slipped and cut him in the process.
Stirner leaned on his left crutch, allowing the second to become a bit loose under his right arm as he reached into the pouch. On the floor before him was the summoning circle he had been working on for some time - the difficulty in setting it up was mostly a result of how hard it was to move around the hotel room without messing it up. The final touches, marble dust.
At the center of the circle was a simple piece of faded, old paper. On it was a handwritten proclamation by a particularly eccentric fellow from the 1800s. It... was something of a phone in vector through which to summon a Servant, the only thing he could readily afford with what money his family had. He actually found it on one of the 'website' things, one where people bid as if they were at an auction house, only thousands of miles away from one another. There were no other bidders, despite the pieces claims of authenticity and import to a character who called himself an Emperor.
Stirner knew all too well that such claims were dubious and a tad ridiculous, and he may have been better off simply letting the System decide on a Servant for him, but that would not do. That made the matter a random variable, one he had no control over. However, like this he could do something. He could alter a line, and in full knowledge know that his Servant will be altered.
Maybe the Servant in question was mad in life, and he counted on it. Hopefully he would lend himself to the class which would be good for the both of them. He would not be summoning a great legend like King Arthur, Herakles or Houyi, but a man of folklore. In a way it was appropriate for his status, as he was no great family head, not a great name at the Clocktower. He was just a boy.
And so the boy spoke. He spoke the incantation which was tradition among the participants of the War, and he spoke the altering words - the words of the Berserker. Light filled the small, two bed room, the blue-tint of the summoning magics overriding the lighting of the bulbs and momentarily blinding the one-legged magus, his crutch falling to the ground as he covered his eyes, teeth grit in uncertainty. While he doubted himself and his purpose in being in Japan, he knew one thing;
The next two weeks would be dangerous.
He could only hope to be as dangerous as the war required him to be.
Lancer Nimrod
The King once again allowed silence to rest between them, an intentional move, a subtle test of character. Indeed, Ernest had done himself a service by first reffering to him as the King of Babylonia, and showing acceptable levels of respect. Enough to forgive him his summoning, and enough to allow him something to ease his spirits. Although in his haste to summon an entity worth its salt, he had foolishly failed to specify a class, he none the less was happy with the form he was given.
"Pleasantries can be disposed between a King and their friend when in private, Ernest. These puppets hardly seem to count as actual life," He inclined his head to the kneeling thralls. "You have a disposition not dissimilar from my closest advisor and friend in ages past. Terah called me Nimr. You may call me the same. Not Nee-murh, that is a failure of the tongue. Nimr, roll of the tongue, purr like a cat - as it only appropriate for the word 'Panther'." He took on a calm, relaxed tone as he spoke, rolling his shoulders with an experimental intent, looking down at his bare body. He was stark naked, nothing covered on his sculpted body. It was not too surprising for him to be summoned in such a way. He snorted in amusement at his own lack of clothing, finding some sort of humor in it.
"You have summoned me as the Lancer. At your command, I can be garbed in that which grants me authority over beasts. At your command, I can call upon my greatest weapon. Naturally, I need not listen, but consider this an offering of good faith, 'Master'! Tell me our first course of action, and I shall listen. How often I listen shall be based on the merit of your ideas - and I will be kind enough to offer my own advice to you. For example, I appear to be in need of clothes." He gesutred down to his body, smirking all the while. He was proud of his form, and he made no effort to hide it from the sickly man.
"May I recommend what is considered the 'finest' in this era? Nothing gaudy, mind you."He was one of
those Servants. The truly unwieldy ones with an immense amount of self-determination. Such was not ideal to some, but to others it could be a great benefit - even if they do not realize it. A Servant capable of putting up a fight against the will of their Master forced different perspectives to be considered, but as to if those perspectives were helpful would be a different matter.
Hopefully Nimrod would be the helpful sort.
@DrowsyPangolin @Berserk Gene
