Beloss

Fate/Empty Providence

Alex Bradan

The Scuttle, docked in the Fuyuki harbor.

---

"Piercing through twelve obstacles?" Alex thought for a moment, trying to recall if he had ever heard of such a thing, but drew a blank. It sounded more like something one would expect from a bunker busting bomb, or some other terrifying modern piece of military equipment, than from a hero with a bow, no matter how saturated with Prana and Mystery he might be. "Sounds like quite a shot."

More importantly his Servant was one who had been lost at sea, and was now actually refusing to venture to far out onto it. It made little sense to him, for a Servant, even if they were to become lost at sea, it should have been a simple matter to assume spirit form and fly back to shore over the waves. Still, he supposed that every man has his phobia.

"I can promise you, in this day and age becoming lost at sea is no mean feat. I will not be venturing out as far as that, for I don't think this ship has enough fuel in it to take it beyond the range of easy rescue. Not in this part of the world. If it troubles you so much though, I can promise that I will only sail out as far as is necessary to loose sight of our pursuers. I don't see them following us in another boat, and if they do you should be able to sink it with no trouble no?"

Alex rose and gestured for his Servant to follow. Crossing though several corridors he came to a flight a steel stairs and ascended onto the deck. They were siting in harbor under a clear night sky. Around them in every direction a small fleet of other ships stat, bobing in their places. Some were more run down than The Scuttle itself, while others, great white yachts, shone pristine and beautiful in the moonlight.

"If a Clock Tower magi comes at us it will be in one of those." He said gesturing to the slick looking yatchs. "They will be marginally faster than us, but unenchanted. Could you sink them if it came to it?"

---

@Cu Chulainn

Fate/Empty Providence

Rostam

Edge of Meadow, Southern Forest, Town Outskirts

---

The pale steed of Rostam galloped on for a time, eating up the distance at a pace more suitable for an aircraft than a land bound animal. Though it made no special effort to conceal itself, the time of night combined with the simple pure speed of the prenatural courser would have made any witnesses hard pressed to say that they had gotten a good look at the enormous thing that had passed so quickly through their field of vision.

Several car accidents were had that night from the sight of the Phantasmal Beast, but when the cars were towed, the glass swept up and the police reports made, none of those who had caught a glimpse of the Rider and his mount said anything about what they had, for a terrible instant, thought they saw. It would not do to give the police reason to think that one had been drinking, or partaking of even more adventurous substances before losing control of the wheel.

In the end Rakhsh came to a stop deep within the woods which bordered the city of Fuyuki, slowing to a trot on the borders of a small meadow. It would have been hard to say if the gifted animal had heard Lorelei and understood her, or if it had merely desired to distance itself as much as possible from the strange alien landscape of the modern world before considering itself safe.

Rakhsh spat Lorelei out onto a tuft of grass, accompanied by a tremendous quantity of saliva, and then leaned over in the peculiar way that some horses do, spilling its injured rider onto the ground as gently as possible.

It wasn't very.

Rostam hit the dirt with a thud that seemed to make a ground shake, and lay prone on the soft forest floor. Any other Servant in such a state would have most likely reverted to spirit form as quickly as possible to ease their pain, but Rostam did not seem to be aware of his condition. He made no effort to move, simply smiling happily, chuckling to himself and looking up at the night sky with twinkling eyes. Blood was frothing and bubbling along the edges of his beard, but he made no move to wipe it away.

The horse stared at him for a few moments, seeming as if it were trying to determine if he would make a move to help himself. When he made none it gave him a sharp kick in the side, which elicited a grunt, but little else.

Whinnying, seemingly in irritation, the gargantuan stallion bit down on the dragonskin cloak and dragged the injured giant to the trunk of the nearest tree, where, with great difficulty it nudged and prodded him with its snout until it had propped him up with his back to the trunk. Then it trotted off, heading straight for the tall patches of grass that were sprouting from the nearby meadow, tossing its head and mane with the unmistakable air one one who thinks they are unappreciated.

Rostam didn't even bother to stop maintaining the creature, but continued to stare off into space, though his mad laughter had subsided somewhat, replaced with a more subdued sort of delirious good humor.

---

@Holy Grail

Fate/Empty Providence

Someone summoned Joe Pesci, only to realize he was a woman all along.

Fate/Empty Providence

@Yukitamas

If the shot is headed toward the thickest part of your armor, and you are confidant that it will be deflected, then yes you can hurt yourself more by trying to move out of the way, and instead having the arrow hit a more lightly armored area.

Also keep in mind that Hercules skin does not work the same way as Armor and Babr-e Bayan does. If an A rank attack hits Hercules, then he gets hit with an A rank attack, and his invulnerability basically does not exist. Babr-e Bayan and Armor heavily subtract from the power of an attack even if they are penetrated.

If Hercules sees an NP arrow being charged up and thinks that it's in the A rank range, it makes sense for him to try and deflect it. Rostam seeing an arrow that was not charged up, or released via name or anything, had no reason to suspect it was anything more than an especially fast glittery arrow, which would do minimal damage to him even if it was an A or A+ ranked attack.

Yes, Agility does cover a wide variety of things like dexterity, finesse and raw speed, all of which contribute to being able to dodge or deflect arrows, hence why it's harder for Rostam with his C rank vs Hercules with his A rank. When you have less of any one of these things it covers, dealing with fast moving objects becomes harder for you.

Fate/Empty Providence

Hercules has A rank agility, and saw it coming before it was within a few instants of him. It also had to be charged before it was fired.

Fate/Empty Providence

Alex Bradan

The Scuttle, docked in the Fuyuki harbor.

---

Alex listened to his Servants list of conditions and nodded at each one of them as they were presented. There was nothing to far off the mark here, though he chuckled softly when the Servant concluded. He held up his right hand displaying the command spells that were etched there. "If I decide to write a complaint you'll know in a hurry."

Jibes aside, he approved of his Servants basic outline, and found himself relaxing slightly. Their basic ideas of method at least were in accord, and from there pretty much everything else could be dealt with as it came. A loose, practical method of negotiation, that was what Alex Bradan liked best.

"Don't get me wrong Mr. Archer. I like to think of myself as a passable Magi, and I'm smarter than a good half of those old blood Clock Tower fucks. I don't intend to give you a reason to desert me." He moved over to one of the little circular tables that lined the wall of the chamber and moved several jars of reagents away before takeing his seat on the bench and lighting a new cigaret.

"To specifics then. This ship has been etched with my personal bounded field, while we are on board we should have some measure of security. I wouldn't want to sit in dock with a crack team of Enforcers on my tale, but most of these other competitors won't be that. More to the point, this ship is seaworthy. I don't plan on staying in the same place, and if things get hot enough, I intend to bring her far out to sea before circling back in to throw them off the scent. None of this should be a problem for you though, so long as you allow me to perform Transferal of Consciousness on you. It will let me to see through your eyes, let us coordination over long distance."

He paused takeing a puff or two on his cigaret before continuing.

If they try to attack us on the open waves that should give you the advantage. I cant think of a more coverless field. In fact, if it comes to it, luring some of them out over the water to shoot them down might not be so bad an idea. If you have the firepower to pull it off we could turn this rig into a mobile weapons platform, which brings us back to what your real name is, or at least, what your capabilities are.

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@Cu Chulainn

Fate/Empty Providence

@Asuras Hey fancy font. Typical for the Illuminati who control everything and have all the money!

Anyway, I would like to propose a toast to Hugues de Payens and the upcoming illuminati order. Long may they reign behind the scenes!

youtube.com/watch?v=dSpOjj4YD8c

Fate/Empty Providence

@Moonlit SonataI see, so by mitigating the dammage I presume you mean shifting the damage to a place like grazing his side, or clipping his shoulder, or hitting him at an angle that was not dead on.

In any case, I am not complaining of the finnal result. I think what happend works very well for the story, and it's natural for him to be overconfident.

I also never thought that Rostam and Gilles de Rais would be having quotes in common.

Fate/Empty Providence

@Moonlit Sonata Very interesting... now you have me guessing archers. I am thinking of someone like Houyi... There are a lot of archers :P

Now that the event is over though, I have a few questions about technical things for future reference.

So, when I started, I was operating under the rough impression that a Hero with C rank agility would have a very limited ability to do things like dodge or deflect arrows with their weapon. This seems to be a game for Servants with B rank agility and up, since Mordred finds deflecting Chiron's arrows tricky.

When you put down that it was a super speed arrow even by Servant Standards, I figured that dodging or deflecting it was entirely out of the question, especially since it was also a surprise attack at a very opportune time for the sniper to strike.

Anyway, then you put down that Rostam would have been wise to try and dodge. Was this actually meant as an option for him? I sort of figured at the time that I would be god modding if I put down that he had dodged, or partially dodged a superspeed arrow.

Fate/Empty Providence

@DrowsyPangolin
Ah, thank you!