Duoya

DanMachi: Alter Oration [DEAD]

Will get a post out sometime tomorrow, probably after I'm done my classes.

Goblins

As Clelk relaxed by his hut, he noticed that there was a small stack of dry wood - it seemed like Cyrus had stopped by and delivered the wood and Clelk, in his fervor, didn't notice. Well, Clelk didn't need the wood for completing the Sword in the end, so he simply took the small pile and moved it into his hut, gently placing it alongside his many belongings. It would come in handy relatively soon, considering it was nearly time for dinner.

The thought of continuing work into the night briefly crossed Clelk's mind, but he rejected the idea almost immediately. He wasn't some young runt anymore - back when he was an apprentice, Clelk was foolish enough to work the forge all through the night, trying to impress his master with his productivity. He learned the error of forging in the dark while extremely exhausted, and he had the burn scars to prove it. Forging something besides a single sword in a day was a nice idea, but forging took a long time, so Clelk had no choice but to settle for that. Not that he was really complaining, considering forging was such hard work in the first place - the only reason he wanted to make another weapon was to squeeze someone else dry of animal pelts.

Clelk never really got the status attached to swords in the tribe - was it just because they were so costly and difficult to make? Compared to a spear, swords usually weren't as good in a fight. But then again, Cyrus paid a very nice price for a weapon like this, so Clelk didn't really have a right to question him. Those pelts more than made up for what he lost buying his pot, and the dry wood saved him a trip to the forest. Clelk stretched his rotund body, before grabbing the completed sword and his Iron Pot. He'd find Cyrus as soon as he could, and then start making dinner.

Goblins

Will post again sometime tomorrow - probably won't be too long though, since a lot of time has passed from Clelk's perspective in forging the sword.

Fate/『 』Märchen

Daisuke gulped, doing his best to stop shaking - he still couldn't get over it. Four Servants... What the hell was happening?! Daisuke didn't feel safe in the slightest, despite the fact that Edward was only a dozen or two meters away at most. It was ridiculous, and no way in hell would he be staying there any longer. It was times like this where Daisuke wished Survivor had eaten a horse or some other large animal. Then it could assume some large form, hollow out the bones, and fly away while carrying Daisuke. That wasn't an option here. All Daisuke could do was rely on his own Servant to protect him.

T-that sounds smart... We've already learned a lot tonight, so leaving is safe-.

Just as Daisuke finished sending that message, his line of thinking was cut off by the sound of someone yelling. A girl - he hadn't noticed it beforehand, thanks to the other familiars he had deployed, but Tromar had been captured by someone. Why hadn't he informed Daisuke of this? Was the connection blocked by the perpetrator, or was Tromar just too frightened to inform Daisuke? It didn't matter. Someone was in Daisuke's hiding spot, and his only real defense was Edward.

Luckily, fate seemed to be on Daisuke's side. Two of the presences in his connection to Edward were rapidly leaving the area, leaving only a single Servant behind for Edward to deal with. If Daisuke needed it, Edward was close enough to rush whoever this was and at least try to deliver an attack. They were unlikely to be a Servant, based on the second thing they said - the only Mage Servants were Casters, and even a Caster could have slaughtered Daisuke before he really noticed. He had to be dealing with a Master.

Daisuke quickly reached for his Tome once more, releasing another Parrot. This one had yet to acquire a name, as Daisuke had only turned it into a familiar a few days ago. If the master was going to kill a familiar of Daisuke's, then he wanted it to be someone he had little emotional attachment to. He sent the Parrot down the stairs, and remotely controlled its body. With his new senses, he was greeted to the sight of a girl around his age, clearly not of Japanese descent. Daisuke didn't note much other than her Red hair and blue eyes, however - he instantly honed in on the small bird with her, bound in chains.

"Why would I come down when you... Threatened to shoot me?"

It was more difficult than Daisuke remembered to speak using a Parrot. Communicating via a familiar could be done magically, but Daisuke wanted to conserve as much Mana as he possibly could in case he needed to fight. Not that he wanted to fight in the first place - his sole objective now was to call back all of his familiars and get home safely.

"I would like to have my... familiar back if you don't mind."

Now was not the time for pleasantries - Daisuke merely wanted to recover his allies, and leave. Daisuke was about to call for Berserker and had to restrain himself. That was definitely an option, but judging by the chains around Tromar, this Master had him at her will. Tromar wasn't the most important, but he was still one of Daisuke's familiars - if she escaped with him, there was no telling what would happen. And calling Berserker would be the fastest way to get her to start running.

Daisuke was too focused on the enemy Master to realize another presence had entered the building. Normally Survivor, who had very acute senses thanks to its various other forms, would have noticed something amiss, but it too was focused on the Master that revealed herself. Not out of fear - but hunger.

@SSW@KoL@King Cosmos

Fate/『 』Märchen

Daisuke Nakahara

Daisuke didn't think his distraction worked - despite calling Edward a Rider, he could sense through his connection with his servant that the Saber class servant simply attacked him directly. Maybe she would have done that no matter what class Edward was? In the end, it didn't matter - the Rider class servant has yet to reveal themselves to Daisuke, so that would make a good disguise for Edward to take for the first night or two of the war. If he was lucky, they would be much more careful around Edward and think that he had more Noble Phantasms than he really did. The more intimidating they found Edward, the more likely they would simply leave him and Daisuke alone - which was all that the young master really wanted.

After what felt like an agonizingly slow amount of time, Daisuke finally managed to make it into the building he was walking towards, and he immediately took cover inside. Here, he could finally relax. Daisuke slammed the door of the building shut, and quickly began hyperventilating, before falling to the ground. He was exhausted - not from mana drain, since the ritual hadn't really been all that stressful on him, and it seemed Edward was not too mana intensive for some reason. Daisuke was exhausted from fear - he had been within a few dozen feet of a hostile Servant, one of the most dangerous things that he could possibly confront in this city. And he turned his back on it. Walking away rather than running hadn't been too bad though - it didn't matter whether he walked or ran since any Servant would catch him in seconds either way.

After freaking out for a few seconds, Daisuke immediately lunged for the stairs headed towards the roof of the building. He needed a vantage point, and while it wasn't the best protection from a Servant, the vertical distance was a much larger deterrent than horizontal distance or physical obstacles. Daisuke's body slammed against the door to the roof, but he didn't open it. It took some time for his mind to realize that going into the open air, even if it was on a roof, was a bad idea - Survivor still hadn't found the Saber's Master, so being anywhere outside was a horrible idea. The enemy could snipe him with a rifle, or use a command seal to kill him instantly.

Instead, he stayed on the top floor of the building, hiding in one of the corner rooms. No one was inside for some reason - clearly the work of the Saber's Master. Whatever they did that caused the usual large crowds of people near Tokyo Tower to disappear seemed to affect those inside buildings as well. It was times like this that Daisuke wished he studied things other than Familiar-craft, even if it was just to know what other Magi were doing. The fighting outside could be heard clearly, as Berserker and the Saber were fighting. Daisuke wished he could watch the battle with his own eyes, if only to know what they were really up against. He set down his duffel bag before pulling out the large, tattered Tome from earlier. He opened its pages, and after reading some of the small scripts on the index of the Tome, decided on who he wished to summon.

"You're my sacrifice, Lamora..."

Lamora of the Cobblestone - the 11th Pidgeon that Survivor caught, and the 1st he didn't immediately eat. Having passed that trial, Lamora earned the right to join Daisuke's ranks of familiars. He never spent much time with her, but even he thought what he was about to do was exceedingly cruel. Daisuke walked over to the door to the roof, opened it very slightly, and pushed the Pidgeon through the crack.

It only took some slight mental coaxing to convince Lamora to begin her flight. Just as Daisuke was about to take over her senses, his connection to the pidgeon immediately snapped. He was about to question how something like that could happen when he heard a sickening splat outside the building on the ground. Lamora must have seen Edward and that... killed her?

Daisuke didn't know if he should have been excited or terrified of Edward at that point. On the one hand, he was an extremely powerful being, able to kill a familiar that just looked at him. On the other hand, it seemed like Daisuke was not immune to this ability, seeing as Edward told him to look away. Even if Lamora was just a Pidgeon, it was still a familiar - one that died as soon as it saw Edward. What would happen if Daisuke accidentally saw Edward during the fight?

It didn't matter - all that was important was finding the enemy Master. That was Daisuke's role in any battle. Find the enemy Master, and throw as many familiars as necessary at them until they finally succumbed to the weight of bodies and minor injuries. Daisuke released five more birds from his Tome - two crows, a parrot, and two more pigeons. All five flew out of the roof's door, and Daisuke was extra cautious in informing them where not to look in order to avoid Edward's aura. Reconnaissance was everything, and while Daisuke had far, far more flying familiars at his disposal, he wanted to keep his mana-consumption somewhat limited while Edward was fighting. The Parrot was especially nice - if he was lucky, he could distract the enemy Master with words while he informed Edward of the position of the Master.

Daisuke felt far from safe in his small building, but he was not going to waste the energy needed to summon and maintain one of his larger familiars. Even a caster would be able to smack them aside with ease, and they lacked the versatility and stealth that Survivor possessed. Reluctantly, Daisuke called Survivor back to his location, and after opening the roof door once more, allowed the creature to enter his body once again.

"Fai... lure..."

"I-it's okay, Survivor - I sent some of my winged scouts to survey for the Master. Your objective now is to keep me safe."

Survivor was nowhere near strong enough to harm a Servant, but he could probably tank a weak blow or two. That would give Daisuke enough time to use a Command Seal and summon Edward to his position.

Five birds weren't going to attract too much attention, but they would definitely help to scout. Daisuke didn't share his senses with any of them, fearful of Berzerker's aura, but they informed him via a mental connection of every interesting thing they saw. It was only a matter of time before they found someone, and when they did, Daisuke only needed to let the hordes loose.

One of the Pigeons found something first - sigils layered on the walls of an alleyway, which could only be a Bounded Field. Of course, Daisuke, being unknowledgeable about anything unrelated to Familiars, had no clue what it was. He only knew that whatever it was, it was magical. The Pigeon, Tromar the Gregarious, was quickly instructed to roost nearby, and keep an eye out for any Masters wandering in the area. Daisuke didn't know this, but this field was indeed set up by another Master - although, it was a fake merely meant to distract any Masters who discovered it. Tromar (and Daisuke by extension) would almost never find the Master responsible for it - she was hidden behind an actual Bounded Field, meant to hide her presence from people like Daisuke.

Daisuke deemed Tromar's station important enough to warrant permanent roosting, and he released another Parrot into the battlefield to replace the pigeon's prior duty. Good thing he did so as well since as soon as he released the second Parrot, the first managed to find something interesting as well - some kind of massive spider. Daisuke, unlike with the field, knew what this was. It was a Puppet, designed to look similar to a Spider. Daisuke had always wanted to try creating Puppets and Golems, which had intrigued him and he believed might be similarly obedient to him as his familiars were, but he always lacked the resources and knowledge necessary to experiment with them. In the end, animal familiars were something he was far more experienced with, and something that was much easier to procure.

He sent the Parrot to fly a dozen feet above the spider a few times, testing the creature. It was obviously connected to a Master, but Daisuke really doubted that his Parrot familiar (Morama, Devourer of Pota-Yaki) could even lightly damage the construct. The best thing to do was to try communicating, or at the very least try to distract the enemy Master. That would give the other familiars time to actually find the damn person.

Daisuke got jolted back to reality by a sudden, uneasy feeling. Unaware of the cause at first, he focused on the various connections he had at the moment, before honing in on the one he had with Edward. Someone had joined the fray between the two Servants. It couldn't have been a Master - no Master would be suicidal enough to fight a Servant. That could only mean one thing - another Servant had joined the fray. Three Servants... A loud sound resounded through the battlefield, and Daisuke had to restrain himself from looking out the mirror. Even an accidental look at Edward might have meant his death... Although, the fact that it seemed like another Servant had joined the conflict may as well have meant the same thing.

FOUR SERVANTS!? How did they find Edward so quickly? Did a tall foreigner really stand out so much that nearly all the Servants in the war could find them? Even worse, Daisuke hadn't even found a single Master yet. Daisuke messaged his Servant, extremely distressed.

I'm sensing more Servants through our connection! What's happening?!

@heroic2019@KoL@SSW

Fate/『 』Märchen

Daisuke was just about to release some of his familiars to start scouting - Tokyo was a massive city, but Daisuke's sole objective in scouting was to guarantee no masters were within a certain area around their base. He couldn't care less about actively seeking them out, which would be a lot more difficult than sticking to a relatively small radius. Daisuke didn't get the chance to release any from his tome, however, as he rapidly noticed that no other people were around them anymore.

This was impossible - Tokyo Tower was always popular at all hours of the day, and at least a few people would have been walking towards it with Daisuke and Berserker. Daisuke had no clue what was causing it since he never really paid attention when his family tried teaching him stuff like this, but he knew it had to be some form of magic keeping people away. Didn't matter if it was enchantment or some kind of mental manipulation - all that mattered was that somewhere nearby, there was a Master.

That was a lie - there was at least one other person here. She was a woman in some odd combination of dress and armor that really didn't look that effective. Daisuke didn't need any kind of magic to realize who this was - it was clearly a Servant since no modern person would wear such a getup outside of cosplay.

It didn't hurt that she literally said she was Saber. Daisuke immediately balked at that. Sabers were considered to be some of the best Servants in the war, thanks to their incredible stats and lack of weaknesses. It took a lot of effort to calm down - Daisuke had to remind himself that he had Edward on his side. Daisuke wasn't meant to help too much, other than be a mana battery and to try and rout out the enemy master.

Look away, Daisuke. If you want to witness this fight, use your Master’s Clairvoyance… But beware of the enemy’s own Master.

Daisuke immediately turned around, keeping his Servant out of his sight. He had no clue why, but he did know one thing - if your Servant warns you, you want to obey that warning.

Survivor, you'll need to look for the other Master - they should be close by since she isn't an Archer.

That wasn't necessarily true, but it wasn't really like Daisuke knew that - he knew basic information about the war, but when it came to specifics like range and mana drain, he was pretty much clueless. Daisuke just knew that Archers could go further away from their masters than others could, and could stay away longer as well. A ball of flesh seemed to grow from Daisuke's neck like a tumor, before detaching and growing feathered wings. It flew towards the tower, keeping its eyes up and away from Berzerker. Looking for the master was gonna be difficult, especially since Survivor had to rely on Daisuke's Master clairvoyance to keep in mind where his servant was and avoid it.

Daisuke started walking forwards, away from Edward and Saber. He would only be a detriment to Edward if he stayed so close to their fight. All he could offer was distractions and attacking the source of Saber's mana.

"Be careful, Rider. If you require my aid, call for me - I'm not above using a Command Seal the first night."

Daisuke started walking slowly, doing his best to try and appear cool and nonchalant. Internally, he was terrified - Servants could kill a normal human a hundred times over in a second, and keeping his back to a hostile one would normally be impossible for someone like Daisuke. He could only manage it because he trusted Edward to protect him while he tried getting to a safe spot. Daisuke's goal right now was a building nearby - if he managed to get in there and make it to the roof, he could use his familiars far more easily to look for the enemy master, as well as stay away from the battle the Servants were going to have.

@SSW@KoL@heroic2019

DanMachi: Alter Oration [DEAD]

Perfect! Torran had managed to save the day once again! The older man slammed the door violently in the Boaz's face, so Torran raised his voice a bit to make sure that the man heard him speak.

"Thank you very much, sir! Have a good day!"

Torran proceeded to turn around and walk back to the two small children standing by the gate in fear. Once he got close, he decided to reveal his discovery.

"Alright guys, I managed to figure out where your mom is! She's somewhere on Daedalus' Street."

Torran was met with confused looks, and he paused slightly. Did they not know where they lived? It should have been obvious since they were asking strangers how to get home, but it took Torran a few seconds to work through that problem. Normally it'd be left to him, someone who lived in the city for 23 years to navigate to the street, but Torran had never really explored the city to any major degree - he also had no idea where Daedalus' Street was.

Well, when you fail one plan, you just have to make another one! Torran decided that, now that he had a concrete idea where to look, asking for help from strangers would be far more effective at this point.

"C'mon, I'm sure we can manage to convince someone to give us directions now! After all, we know where we're going!"

Torran started walking back where he originally found the children, not taking time to see if they were following behind him. Not out of any ill will or anything, he just didn't think to check that they didn't fall behind. As he finally got to the street, he immediatly started asking random strangers for directions to Daedalus' Street.

Goblins

The work of heating and working the metal was slow and boring, repeatedly holding the bar into the fire before hammering it into a more suitable shape. The 'sword' was honestly nowhere near as impressive as the name implies, and was more of a large iron dagger - at least, from a human perspective. For a goblin, with their small size and weaker strength, Clelk was making a veritable longsword.

After around 2 hours or so of hammering, Clelk was satisfied with the shape of the bar - long, skinny, and flat. Almost completely blunt, but the blade wasn't supposed to be developed at this point of forging. He reheated the blade again, before hammering into a straight piece of metal, removing any bends or dents in the blade. Next came one of the worst parts of this entire process.

Clelk moved into his hut and grabbed a large saw - he had a pair of old shears as well, but the metal for the sword was thick enough that using them would more likely break the shears than it would help cut the blade. He then proceeded to spend another 20 minutes of intense sawing in order to cut off the unworked section of the iron bar, for later use. After another 20 minutes, Clelk managed to cut part of the excess metal off, and he proceeded to heat it up in the flames. This significantly smaller piece was to serve as the crossguard, which only really served a purpose during war times, as wild animals didn't really use weapons that could be blocked with a guard. Still, better than nothing.

After he was satisfied with the shape, Clellk began what was the longest part of the forging process - the detailing. He got a whetstone and started his work, cutting the edges down to a nice curve and actually sharpening the blade itself. If Clelk had more advanced tools, the process would be far, far quicker, but he didn't really have the option available to him as a goblin. He also used the whetstone on the flat portion of the blade itself - not to sharpen it or anything, but to remove leftover fragments of iron from the shaping process. The Clelk had to drill a hole into the pommel by hand, drill another hole in the pommel so that they would connect and make the larger hole wide enough to find on the lower end of the blade, and heating the crossguard enough that it would remain fused to the blade with a little hammering.

Clelk then had to vigorously rub sand and the whetstone along the flat ends of the blade in order to make it look nice, and after that, he actually went about attaching the handle. He used leather, since a regular pelt (while easier and a lot less hard to make) was very easy to get dirty, and would rapidly decompose compared to hardened leather.

Clelk never ended up needing the extra dry wood, but it would be nice to have extra as backup. It had been hours, and by the time Clelk had finally finished forging the blade, the sun was beginning to set.

Goblins

I'll try posting again sometime tomorrow.

DanMachi: Alter Oration [DEAD]

Will get a post out tomorrow.