Ryuudou Temple
Caster's Forge
@Ijoyen
The workshop was quite easy to find once the peak of the mountain was reached. After all, simply following the still-expanding conduits of magical energy to where it was being directed would lead Uva straight there. Secrecy had not been a priority in this establishment, due to how well-defended the location was. Who needed a secret lair when they had a fortress?
That said, there was an otherworldly sensation tingling the air once the threshold into the staircase downwards into the mountain was crossed. Fuyuki's greatest leyline was swirling about this nexus, and especially because it was underground, the area was saturated quite intensely with energy.
Twin grooves were carved into the sides of the descent, as it was quite steep. All across the stone surface of the tunnel downward, and indeed the entire workshop, tiny, intricate letters no human script included followed geometric patterns, a veritable labyrinth of circuitry. The interior glowed with a soft twilight, as a side effect of the collection of sunshine being used for controlled heating. The redder, lower-frequency light was after all being expulsed actively by the furnace-field, which was in the very center like a tiny sun. At the very bottom of the steps, however, a silvery pool spanned the workshop's floor. Youzai had also descended down here shortly before Uva arrived, it seemed, equally curious.
The floor of the workshop was entirely, evenly covered in a veneer of mercury, though no amount of heat or disturbance would yield vapor. It did feel slightly odd to walk through, though it did not adhere to anything except itself. The liquid metal reflected the three of them and the ambient glow. Bizarrely, the ceiling seemed to stretch into infinity, as if it were a chute straight up through the mountain to the sky at night, though this was purely optical. Up was dark as the moonless sky, yet down was gently glowing like a soft dawn or dusk.
That being said, what was "up" and what was "down" was entirely a matter of perception. This space, this Noble Phantasm that was just as much part of the servant as their body, was not something of human origin. Even though Weyland's Elemental nature was sealed, this space was a reflection of that fey splendor. One's kinesthetic senses parsed the body's motion as they always would expect.
The air carried a hot, metallic sweetness, with a faintly lingering pungency like that of watered-down wine. Every breath was warm and rich, but every exhalation felt desiccated and cold. Even Youzai, who was used to all manner of disturbing things even other magi were nauseated by, was visibly anxious here.
It didn't smell like anything. No, rather, it smelled like nothingness, even in spite of the taste in the air. Not sterile, not empty, not even the unconsciously-familiar scents of one's own body could be smelled here.
The forge had currents through it, flowing like rivers, branching like deltas, and standing inside it led to the occasional sensation of pressure from one direction or another, sometimes more than one. Some of these currents occasionally were reflected in the mercurial floor, despite being unseen otherwise, and other seemed to dilate or shrink rather than move on any of the three axes of standard motion.
The workshop was a cube in overall shape, even if the top seemed to stretch infinitely, at least visibly. Somewhat nauseatingly, slight variances of viewing angle moved the not-sky panorama drastically, with no correlation to the established relationship between perspective and distance.
What was actually along the floor of the workshop that they stepped on was being hidden from them by the mercury. No amount of agitation could part it enough to reveal the surface below.
There was no doorway that had been stepped through. Youzai looked closer, however, and the wall behind him had a glassy refraction, which he could still pass his hand through. So the entry and exit remained as they were, even if they were concealed. The other eighteen walls of the square room shifted and moved, folding and spiraling. Occasionally, droplets of the mercury floor dripped upwards, starting to glow like fireflies while drifting around, before suddenly hurtling off into what seemed like miles-away distance.
Youzai was impressed, but not amused. "Caster, this is...excessive, isn't it?" The conflicting sensory information was vertigo-inducing.
Caster stepped out from the center of his forge, that which looked like a red dwarf star. He was muscular even by knight-class standards, it looked odd for a Caster. Hundreds of golden rings looped and coiled around his torso like chains, looped and grasping several simple tools the smith had already made from mundane materials. A smaller hammer, an awl, some sort of corkscrew-shaped tongs, a rounded hammer, a snowflake-like ring of chisels of varying width and size, a small cone... The ring-chains held them with visibly-evident grip and readiness. Caster's broad shoulders, hulking like a bear, were decorated with four large jewels that stared at Youzai and Uva. The Servant's own eyes were closed, by contrast. His face...it was shaped like a face, but looking at it did not register to the unconscious as "a face". It had all the components of a face, and if you put all those components together you'd have a face, but that face was not "a face" to human instinct. To a homunculus, however, who lacked "human instinct" per se, it was simply a "face-like thing" that lacked some difficult to quantify aspect that crucially identified it as a face.
Instead, that indistinct "face" quality was staring at them from the corners and seams of the workshop. Wherever surface met surface, as if gaps between a veil's threads, the "face" was watching from behind it.
"This gaudy decor upon my name is not of my volition, Contractor. I did not make us, the Grail did."
That not-face turned to Uva. "Good. A physical link to the recipient." Several of the chains retracted and shortened, providing their rings to a new length that reached out like a three-fingered hand to receive Uva's catalyst-stone. Though now that they were face to face, all four of the jewels on Caster's shoulders stared at Uva. "Your construction is perfectly flawless, absolutely pure. You are an unexpected feat for this age."
Youzai frowned, mentally advising Caster not to antagonize one of their allies. Caster replied that he had chosen his words exactingly, to convey what would be interpreted as praise. Caster did indeed recognize Uva as far beyond the norm of coining homunculi, after all, but omitted his opinion of that accomplishment. And his maggot-ridden turd of a Contractor could fuck off with that nannying.
"We will begin now. The Contractor will alert you when it is completed."
