The twin Masters both listened attentively to Archer’s advice, Costante standing still and calmly taking notes while Karizma shifted her weight impatiently from one foot to the other. When their Servant had finished talking, they instantly looked towards one another, unspoken thoughts passing between them in a flash as their eyes met.
He makes good points.
And he does know what he’s doing!
Then I can trust him to take care of you.
And I can trust you to watch our backs.
They both smiled, and then without any sign or signal nodded to Archer in perfect synchrony.
“Clear as crystal!”
“Clear as day!”
It wasn’t any magecraft or telepathy that allowed them to communicate so quickly, but simply years of experience, a fraternal bond tested and strengthened by time and external forces. When it came to their feelings, each could read the other at a glance, and reach an agreement without so much as a whisper spoken aloud.
Specifics, however, still needed to conveyed the old-fashioned way. “In the interest of caution, I’ll keep my surveillance focused around the two of you for the most part,” Costante said, already heading for the stairs. “Archer, make sure to relay the position of anything you see back to me; I’ll do likewise if I spot anything with my telescopes.” His talent hadn’t been hailed by the Clock Tower for nothing; there was plenty he could do to support them from here.
“Right then!” Karizma skipped her way over to Archer’s side, bowing to him with a girlish giggle. “I’ll be in your care, Senpai. Isn’t that how they say it here?” She winked as she stood up, ignoring the bright red flush on her brother’s cheeks across the room. “Let’s go poke around and see what we can find… Maybe Nobunaga’ll show up! Or Miyamoto Moosashi!” It’d be tempting to try and kill them if they did, but she reminded herself that this was only the first night of a potentially weeks-long event. This would be like the teaser, getting a taste of their opposition so that they’d be ready to go all-out when the time really came.
Assuming Archer had no further comments to share, Costante would quietly disappear off to the upper floors while Karizma threw on a coat and led the way out the door, chattering happily about all the Japanese figures she’d heard about in popular culture. “You think you can beat a ninja? Because I just bet there’ll be ninjas…”
"It's not..." The curvaceous warrior looked faintly embarrassed at the word 'Berserker.' "I should be a Saber," she told Akari, "If I'm summoned like this... Then..." Trailing off, she stared down morosely at the can of soda clutched in her hands. For a moment, it seemed like she might burst into tears.
Why Berserker? Why had she been forced into a Class so deeply tied to rage and madness? The difference seemed negligible at first; her thoughts and speech rang clear and true as they ever had in life. Yet she was deeply aware of what lurked inside her, the demon hiding just beneath her skin. If her Class were to somehow weaken her hold over that, then... The consequences hardly bore thinking about.
On the other hand, she had a Master now, a sweet little girl who clearly didn't have the slightest idea what she had gotten herself into. Even if she'd been able to perform a summoning, this person was no great Onmyoji, and had no means of defending herself against the many enemies who would doubtless appear in this War. In short, this Master was relying on her. And no matter her personal feelings, no matter how dangerous she knew herself to be, the one thing she couldn't bear above all else would be to see this child suffer.
Sniffling a little, the Servant pulled herself together and rose to her feet, before taking a graceful bow. "Forgive me." She would take care of this girl. Even if she had to fight against herself to do so, she would protect her Master to the end.
Slowly, she straightened, taking Akari's hand in her own and meeting her eyes with a warm, gentle gaze. "I am Minamoto no Raikou, Oni slayer of the Heian Era. Her cheeks flushed a little. I... may not be the best woman to stand by your side in this situation, but I hope that you can still accept me as your Servant."
Lavinia could only chuckle at the foolishness of the man who told her to keep the crazy inside. ”You think my madness can be contained? Fool! I shall not be caged, for not matter what barriers may imprison me, my evil spilleth over to corrupt all in my presence!” Her follow-up cackle was somewhat muffled as she popped a donut ball in her mouth and happily chewed on it.
”Your reward, my loyal minion.” She handed one to Asher as well. They really were delicious, the sweet sugar coating mixing perfectly with the rich chocolate contained within. Just like how my beautiful body conceals the blackest of hearts. When she was Dark Empress of Fiore, she would have an entire factory built specifically for the mass-production of these pastries. Or perhaps just a robot army with the same capabilities as the ANP here. She hummed, considering whether the delightful evil of forcing citizens to labor away making sweets outweighed how fun it would be to own a legion of such adorable machines.
While she was chewing, Kaden and the ANP were going back and forth over the specifics of the job. Lavinia didn’t pay them much mind at first, but when the tickets came up she found herself butting in. ”Unlike you pitiful peasants, I have money to spare! In fact, rather than just my own, I think I’ll buy all of our tickets myself.” She looked smugly at Kaden as she said that. She knew he wanted to get rid of her, yet by putting her own money on the line she had solidified herself as an essential part of this mission, leaving him with no choice but to let her tag along. ”Fufufu, I bet you weren’t expecting that! Have a cookie to assuage your despair!” She offered him a donut ball, a vile act of malice that would probably shock anyone watching to their core.
Even by the strange standards of magical workshops the Angelozzis' was really something else. They had rented out an old wooden house near the edge of town, creaky yet spacious, and had immediately set about dividing it up between them.
Thing was, where most brother-sister pairs would have drawn a line on the floor and called it good, the twins had quibbled and squabbled over every inch of space, divvying it up according to some arcane agreement that only they seemed to fully understand. A single room could be divided into no less than five or six separate areas, half of which would be neat and tidy with elegant diagrams and symbols drawn in tastefully simple fashion and stacks of books or crystals tucked carefully away in the corner, and the other half of which would be an anarchic mess of discarded materials and half-finished spells, tomes lying open alongside unwashed items of Karizma's clothing. To make matters worse, the divisions were enforced by a myriad mess of Bounded Fields, cleanly cutting each mage's slices of space off from their sibling's. It was like someone had shattered two workshops into a hundred shards each and then jumbled them together without any regard whatsoever for the overall structure.
And yet somehow, it worked. For anyone else it would have seemed a mad labyrinth, but the twins moved through their divided space with a familiar ease, even popping into each other's workshop fragments at times to steal certain items or texts. The whole place hummed with power, each mage's workings seeming to feed off the other's but not a whit of it leaked outside the perimeter. The outermost layers of their Bounded Fields were a work of art, combining the quirks of each twin's methods and forging them into a whole far stronger than the sum of its parts.
That didn't mean they always got along, though.
"I'm telling you, that's not a viable strategy!"
"Your face isn't a viable strategy!"
"That's really not what's at issue here..." Sighing, Costante turned to their shared Servant. "Archer, I'm right, aren't I? In a many-sided war, it's best to hand back at first and let our opponents take care of each other. With your ranged fighting style, we can easily avoid risky conflicts. If we can pick off targets from afar without them striking back, then all the better."
"Archer's a samurai, silly." Karizma grinned. "A cowardly strategy like that wouldn't be honorable at all! And besides, victory goes to the daring and the strong, not the ones who slink on the sidelines waiting for things to magically go their way. We should carpe diem the shit out of this and go take some famous names while the getting's good."
Costante let out a huff of disapproval. "You're so reckless..."
Karizma stuck her tongue out. "Better than gutless."
"You'll end up literally gutless if you're not careful out there."
"I'll be fine! I have a literal legendary hero on my side!"
"So does everyone else in this war!
"Well, yeah, but they don't have you serving as their mana tank. I mean, come on: between the three of us, we're unbeatable!"
At an impasse, they glared at one another for a moment, before both turning to Archer at the exact same time.
"Out of my way!" Lavinia shouted, as she barged through the door and politely stepped around those waiting outside. "If you're going to go in, then do so, before I trample you underfoot!" She laughed cruelly, swinging the door open wide behind her so they could flood in as they pleased. With this, Torys would be inundated with too many recruits, and the whole guild would burn! Or something.
"Food machine, make me a cookie. Actually, five cookies," she told the ANP. "Asher, make sure it does as I ask. Obey me and I'll let you have one of the cookies." She knew well enough not to let her minions go without reward. A little sugar could quell a rebellion just as well as a heaping dose of terror, though in Lavinia's mind the best way was to employ both at once.
"And you, mage whose name I can't be bothered to learn!" She hurried forwards, catching up to the grumpy-looking Kaden. "Is something wrong? Surely you're not so incompetent as to get us lost already?" Clearly something was affecting his morale. A cookie would go a long way towards fixing that, but in the meantime she ought to remind him of where he stood.
"Chin up! No underling of mine should let themselves be stumped by a task so trifling as this. I'll have you know that failure means a fate worse than death... As he can attest!" She jerked her thumb back towards Asher. "So don't hesitate to ask for my assistance if you need it. Much as it would please me to watch you writhe in unimaginable pain, I want to get this job done as well, so that I may return to more important matters!" Her post-mission itinerary currently included crushing society underfoot, and acquiring the latest novel in the Crimson Tides of Love series. Though maybe that first part could wait until she'd finished the book...
Lavinia was just about to go off on a long tirade to Kaden about how she was the stronger mage and he was just an impudent weakling, which would have culminated in her challenging him to a duel to the death to prove who was superior, when she was rudely interrupted by a talking robot crashing through the window. She let out a high pitched yelp, clutching her robes around her and scurrying away from the impact site.
They’ve found me! was her first thought, before she realized that A) the guild wasn’t under attack and B) the machine was a food robot, and thus perfectly harmless to anyone without a peanut allergy. Drawing herself back to her full height and dusting herself off, Lavinia shuffled awkwardly back onto the scene, hoping nobody had noticed her reaction just now.
”Asher!” she proclaimed, pointing a finger at the curious boy, ”I hereby designate you keeper of the machine! Stay close to it, and ensure that it does not come to any harm.” It was kind of a cute little robot, so hopefully he’d be able to do a good job with that.
”And you!” She pointed to Kaden, who was already heading over to notify Torys. ”Yes, you handle the pointless administrative approval process. And then when you’re done, you can guide us wherever it is we’re going.”
There, that was all the important tasks handed off to others. With this, she could let them take care of the hard work and just idly tag along while daydreaming about Ria—or rather, um, about conquering Fiore. And evil stuff. In fact, while she waited for Kaden to finish up she carefully avoided glancing at the water mage at all. Ria would be fine, she was only going on a mission with Leon. And Leon wasn’t that handsome or anything, right?
Unable to stop herself, Lavinia looked their way for just a moment, and suddenly felt a strange tension in her leg. Like… like an instinctual urge, demanding that she rush over and kick a certain young man in the nether regions.
Instead, she clenched her teeth and stared down at her feet, squashing her jealous feelings before she did something she’d regret. Just… just focus on your mission. You can figure out what to do about her when you get back.
Terrorizing Gwen’s fans was a good start to the day, but Lavinia knew that there was much more to be done if she was to keep up her villain cred in the Guild’s newly competitive environment. Next, she planned to show of her slothfulness by ignoring the job board and crashing on a couch with a book, thus demoralizing the rest of the guild and forcing them to carry out their missions without her valuable support. Maybe Ria would even join her…
No! Bad Lavinia! No thinking about the girl!
She frowned to herself, settling for now in a dark corner of the hall from which she could glower menacingly at their various guests while considering her next move. Thinking about it, it made sense for her to take a job… And then sabotage it at the worst possible moment, causing untold damage and beginning her rise as a force of true evil! Yes, this was an opportunity too good to miss! All she needed was a partner or two, to lend her an air of legitimacy until the moment came to strike.
So who shall it be? Who will be my sacrifice… She ruled out Ria immediately, because the last thing Lavinia needed was her own dumb feelings tripping her up at the last moment. Holly and Grasidia were the only ones strong enough to stop her, so neither of them would do either. She was just beginning to consider the others when someone shouted at her, offering her an answer to the very question she was pondering.
”Coming where? You think I’d go anywhere with trash like you?” She could tell from the way that man talked that he was an unruly lout, and thus unworthy of even breathing the same air as her.
At that moment, however, she had a minor revelation. Wait! Asshole… Evil… Maybe this is it! This man was clearly well-versed in the art of being a dickhead and treating others like shit, having demanded that she accompany him without even so much as asking. This guy… I can learn from him. By observing his horrible attitude and adding it to her own malicious repertoire, her own ability to torment others would rise. Rather than being distracted by Ria’s saintly charms, spending time with this weirdo was sure to bring out her very worst side!
"However,” she continued, standing up straight and striding towards Kaden, “I’ve grown tired of the stench of common plebeians in this hall. Therefore, as of now, I’m in charge of this mission, understand? Your only tasks shall be serving my petty whims, and acting as my loyal meat shield whilst I rain forth destruction upon our enemies!”
@Turboshitter Done! The edited sheet is below, I made some small tweaks to the Background and Relationships sections and removed the last Mystic Code as requested.
Nuari Maaike Yggdmillenia
Gender: F Age: 19 Height/Weight: 167 cm/52 kg Alignment: Chaotic Neutral Master of: Rider (if permitted)
A sharp and highly focused young woman, who never seems to miss even the smallest detail about the world around her. Gives off a scholarly impression, and a sense of knowing more about everyone and everything than a person of her standing should. Despite this, however, her interactions with others have all the finesse of a sledgehammer: she cannot or will not tell a lie and will speak her mind freely, even if doing so means spouting something downright rude or improper.
She is not an empathetic person by nature, or at least not one who cares to understand other humans. Rather, she has an eye for ‘elegance’ and ‘unsightliness,’ not in the aesthetic sense but in terms of mathematics. Something that is sound in terms of principles, structure, and purpose will be seen as good, whereas things that are uncertain or fundamentally flawed will be seen as bad. For this reason, she prefers homunculi to humans, though it’s more of an appreciation for how beautifully they fulfill their purpose rather than any strong desire to influence them.
From Nuari’s perspective, her body is mainly a vessel for keeping her mind alive and at full operating capacity. She maintains it in excellent shape, as one would an essential machine, but prefers mental activities to physical ones in most respects. The exception would be cases where a technique can be finely honed through careful analysis, though really she’s more interested in puzzling out the right movements that need to be performed to carry out a certain action, and actually carrying them out becomes nearly an afterthought. Often, she’ll learn a technique or a form of magic without her body actually possessing the ability to ever make use of it.
It is said that nothing created in the Atlas Institute should ever leave the Atlas Institute. Or at least, this was the rule. For thousands of years, the alchemists fervently obeyed it, keeping the wonders and horrors they had created locked away forever from the outside world. However, over such a long period of time, it is impossible to avoid exceptions to such a strict doctrine. Within the Institute, rumors abound of separatist factions plotting to break away and take their secrets elsewhere, though few can say how many of these whispers contain a hint of truth. On the rare occasion that an Atlas alchemist does attempt to break their cardinal rule, they will almost certainly be killed, or at the very least have their freedom completely restrained. Even if one were to get away from the Institute itself, they would swiftly be hunted down by the Holy Church.
Occasionally, however, an alchemist will just disappear entirely.
Sometimes this is from natural causes, when a half-finished weapon malfunctions and wipes its creator from existence. Other times, such as when a visitor is accepted into Atlas or when the Institute itself is forced to send out some of its alchemists to resolve a major crisis or contractual obligation, they are lost to external forces. The ancestor of what would later become the Maaike family was one such mysterious disappearance, whom all evidence showed to be dead and gone.
In truth, it was a perfect crime. This individual’s field of study- specifically the intersection between Void Space and reality -required them to inspect certain points in the world beyond Atlas in order to continue it. Though they were aware of the Institute’s rule, their obsession with Imaginary Numbers won out in the end, and thus they carefully arranged for their own presumed loss, escaping in such a way that the other alchemists were never even aware of it.
‘Maaike’ is a false name, a minor mage family thought up as a cover for a certain rogue branch of alchemists whose magecraft was originally from Atlas itself. They generally stayed out of the affairs of the Mage Association unless absolutely necessary, preferring to seclude themselves and keep their activities entirely secret while they continued their generations-long work. No matter how stealthy they were, however, eventually suspicions began to rise. A cold case was re-opened, and agents of the Church and the Association suddenly began showing a new interest in this supposedly dull magus family based in the Middle East. The Maaike knew that if things continued, their connection with Atlas would be exposed, and the Institute’s allies would move swiftly to contain and eliminate that which had escaped long ago.
What they needed was protection, an ally who could stand with them against the inevitable retribution that would come for them once the truth was discovered. Yggdmillennia represented a power they could align themselves and use as a shield, a power unlikely to bend to Atlas's will so long as the Maaike made themselves useful to the cause.
Nuari is the latest heir and representative of the Maaike, though she views herself as no more than a cog in the machine that is their project. The Grail's power is a tempting possibility, but to her it's mostly a political opportunity that will raise up Yggdmillennia and ensure her own family's survival.
Maaike family: “A device for the realization of a dream, of which I am one component.” Atlas: “A threat to our dream. Avoidance is a high priority.” Mage Association: “Useful resource, but also an inconvenience and source of threat. Keep contact to a minimum.” Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia: “Our shield. He may be the key to our survival, but this does not mean we can wholly trust him.” Alethia Mathers: “A mage. Some similarities in family history, dealings may be possible.” Slaine Druiminn: “A good boy, but his magecraft is unsightly.”
Origin: Observation Element: Imaginary Numbers School of Magecraft: Alchemy
Memory Partition: an ability used by the superior alchemists of Atlas. It represents the ability to partition thoughts to form multiple independent thought processes. While normal people can only focus on one thought at a time, users of this ability can partition their mind into multiple ‘rooms’ to attack a problem from several angles at once. Advanced users (of which Nuari is one) can perform further titration of their thought processes within these rooms, allowing them to maintain hundreds of separate thoughts at once and perform complex calculations even when occupied with physical tasks.
Thought Acceleration: the main magecraft of Atlas alchemists. Allows for inhumanly rapid thinking, and is a prerequisite for Memory Partition. Used in combination, they vastly increase effective computing power.
Zero Dipping: temporary means of accessing pockets of Void Space and hiding oneself or small objects within them. While in this space, one is effectively outside of reality, and cannot be accessed or harmed from the real world without the use of corresponding magecraft… However, it’s inefficient as a storage method. Its only real use is as an emergency hiding space for Nuari herself or something that she absolutely needs to protect.
Fragrance Annulus: small ring implanted in Nuari’s nose. Vastly enhances her sense of smell, and connects it with the ability to sense magical energy. Her abilities are on par with a bloodhound, or perhaps one of the Hounds of Tindalos; she can detect the nature and origin of a spell even hours after it was cast.
Azure Distiller: an artificial right eye implanted in her skull. Not a true Mystic Eye, but its abilities are on par with them. Not only does it allow for improved sight, it can also configure itself to receive different ‘wavelengths’ and see things that could normally not be seen, from infrared radiation to magically concealed objects to things no human mind would even be able to comprehend.
Q.E.D.: her robes, which act as a strong ‘proof of existence’ of the one wearing them. Can temporarily maintain the user’s existence while in Void Space, and also protects them against conceptual attacks that would erase or distort their nature.
Void Bolt: one of two Maaike weapons in her possession. This one resembles a long brass rifle; when fired it triggers a localized collapse of reality into Void space, about 5 cm wide, that propagates outwards in a straight line for up to 500 meters. The destructive power of this collapse is absolute: anything caught within its narrow path is simply removed from reality as humans know it. However, it propagates at sub-sonic speeds, moving more akin to an arrow than a bullet, so even a human may be able to avoid it if they are fast enough.
Circuit Quality: D Circuit Quantity: E
Other: For some strange reason she is mildly allergic to cats.
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