-Day 0-
Castle Urquhart
-10:00 PM September 23rd, 2017
Richard the Lionheart, great king of Britain now summoned into the class of Saber, approached the battlefield with a relaxed urgency, quietly picking out his targets and prioritizing their immediacy with falcon-like focus. Many children lay dead on the ground before him, some still clinging to just enough life to feel terror at his mere presence. They were priority-zero. His Master and their associates had already dealt with the bulk of them.
He approached one of the dying, a young girl no older than fifteen who looked up at him with wide eyes. Still, the sight of these youths screaming their last upon the bloody castle grounds couldn't help but bring a smile to his face, as he lost himself in the memories of his days charging through the battlefield.
This was where he belonged.
Something that sounded like a plea for mercy bubbled out of the girl's throat, which was thick and frothy with blood. She coughed, heaving up more of the precious red liquid that went spilling through the cracks in her hand.
The girl looked up at him silently, begging for him to save her. Richard smiled at her, his gentle expression bringing a momentary glimmer of hope to the girl's eyes. Kneeling down to her level, he carressed her pretty face with his gloved hand, free from the sword.
"Do not fear, child," he whispered. "This is all according
to God's plan."
Saber stood, leaving her horrified. Activating his skill, he watched all the hope boil out of her as a simmering red mark in the shape of a stylized crucifix appeared on the back of her neck. Then, he simply severed her head from her body. There was her mercy. The mercy of the battlefield.
"Deus lo vult, in hoc signo vinces."KING'S CRUSADE ACTIVE:
All Servants are now afflicted with Fear. Masters may employ Resistance to negate the effect. All Servants without Mad Enhancement, Bravery, Mental Disorder/Pollution and/or other related skills must roll d20 to avoid a Rank Down (-) in STR and AGL
Hearing a great roar, Saber briefly took heed of the massive bulk trundling towards him from the side at supersonic speed, its movements quick but inelegant. It seems his murder of the child had upset the great beast.
"Berserker, then?" the king said to himself, smiling and raising his sword. "Very well then, monster. Come at me as though you wish to die!"
Allowing the mountainous Berserker to crash into him, Richard held his massive axe at bay with his sword, his Saber-class instincts allowing him to parry and deflect the larger man's blows despite the difference in their strength. Thinking to himself that this must be similar to that
judo thing in the East the Grail had informed him of, Saber huffed and immediately switched to a more offensive tactic, freeing Berserker's axe from the grooves of his blade to come crashing apocalyptically down into the moist dirt of the Highlands.
Backing up under the cover of the massive cloud of rock and soil hurled into the air by Berserker's power, the king noticed another Servant entering the fray. Quite obviously Rider, judging by the majestic beast upon which she and her Master rode. What's more, the bow in her hands suggested she was a Rider of the "mounted archer"-type. Richard immediately shifted his stance into a defensive one, ready to parry any incoming projectiles while keeping an eye on Berserker.
Arieh, it appears I am being besieged by both cavalry and infantry tonight. The Rider is easily dealt with, but I fear she may keep her distance and favor that bow whilst Berserker keeps me occupied with that axe in close range. May I request some backup?
Ayondale smiled as a small flaming projectile detonated mere feet from his location, killing two magi who hadn't been paying attention. Wiping the blood off his cheek, he responded warmly to his Servant's message.
"Oh very well then, Richard," he said smugly. "I'll see what I can do about lightening your load."
Turning to the hunting party he had assembled, he yelled "That's enough! The children are dead! Focus on Berserker. He's the only offensive class lacking Magic Resistance. Do whatever you can to prevent him from coordinating an attack with Rider!"
The assembled mages offered a racuous affirmative, and shifted the focus of their fire on the golden Berserker-class Servant, raining spells down on him from atop the hill. Meanwhile, Ayondale dipped his saber-cane into the soft ground and prepared an incantation, scattering small bones throughout the field in front of him. The Mystic Code enhanced and amplified his magecraft as he drew greater and greater amounts of mana from the environment to fuel this spell.
Leviĝu el via tombo
kaj raketu viajn ostojn.
Per vortoj de vivo
mi ligas la ŝtonojn.
250/500
Almost immediately after completing the aria, the mana Ayondale had gathered from the Greater Source was released back into the earth, animating the tiny offerings of dead human tissue as clay and dirt formed around them, hardening into fossilized bone. One by one a small army consisting of a few dozen skeletons rose up from the ground, some grabbing on to the legs of Rider's great horse in an attempt to slow her as others broke off parts of their own bodies to use as makeshift daggers and spears.
"That's all I'm willing to spare for a simple distraction, I'm afraid," Ayondale said, communicating with his Servant. "Use them wisely, Richard."
Robbed of their speech, the undead monsters shouted silent battle cries into the cold, uncaring night, and began to attack.
Albert watched with wordless horror as an army of the dead clawed their way into formation around them. They were surrounded, ambushed, and about to be killed at the height of their victory. Was this truly the price they had to pay for daring to oppose the Clocktower elite?
"Damn... damn... damn!" he protested weakly, his feet pounding against the ground as he ran. He could hear Morgana yelling something in the distance, but he didn't dare give himself away.
Not watching where he was going, he felt himself hit uneven ground, tripping and falling face-first into the cold, wet grass. Realizing with a start that it wasn't the uneven footing that caused him to fall, as there was none here, he began to panic, thinking one of Ayondale's skeleton soldiers had caught him. Quickly he got back to his feet and looked around amidst the chaos, trying to find what had tripped him.
He wished he hadn't.
It was the arm of a child. A student, barely fifteen years old. One of the underclassmen. His eyes burnt out, his clammy dead hands outstretched, the corpse had latched onto Albert's ankle and tripped him. He felt sick.
Quickly crawling behind one of the remaining sections of wall to retch, Albert heaved, then wiped the tears out of his eyes.
"Enough of zis..." he hissed.
Albert reached into his pack that he'd salvaged with one arm missing from it, retrieving the all-important book. He stopped himself. He had to
think first.
203/250
Activating Thought Acceleration and engaging four out of his five maximum rooms, Albert went about formulating a strategy.
I can't use Assassin, let's start wiz zat. Zat's rule number one. Zis situation is totally disadvantageous to 'er class, and I need 'er 'ere to protect me. Battle is not
my strong suit.He glanced briefly at a rabbit poking its head out of its warren, just as startled by it as it was by him. It must've heard the commotion and come to check things out. He shoo'd the thing, watching it dart back underground.
"Trust me, my friend," he whispered. "Zis is not a place you want to be."
He returned to his thoughts.
Zat being ze case zen, why not use zat to my advantage? Ayondale knows my pets inside and out. 'E as all my research, and 'e's watched me develop and breed zem for years. I can't use zem in a head-on attack. So what if I attack 'im 'ead-on wiz fairies instead? Zat will confuse him. 'E knows I do not fight in a manner zat will leave me exposed like zat. But if I 'ave Assassin leave me and make it appear as zough I am undefended, it will make me a much juicier target. 'E won't be able to ignore me. Zen...He disengaged his strategy mode, satisfied with his plan. Reading aloud a quick passage from his book, he placed the item back in his pack, and got ready to run.
Assassin, he communicated telepathically.
Relay zis message to ze ozer Masters. Everyone except zat half-masked git up on ze hill. 'The plan has failed. Order your Servants to retreat and get the hell out of here. We'll regroup at the following address. If you have any reason to believe you were followed, do not come find us. Call us from your cellphone or a public landline and we'll arrange a time and a place to pick you up. The war is just beginning. Good luck.'He gave Assassin the address of a local tavern a few miles away in the town of Inverness.
You got all zat? Use your Presence Concealment to deliver ze message as quickly as possible, zen return to me. I may need your protection if zis doesn't work. He looked over to where he thought Assassin was.
Oh, and don't kill anyone! Zose people are our allies. It's complicated, so I'll explain later.Having said that, he didn't wait any longer to act. Albert didn't trust his body not to chicken out on him if he did.
"Hey, Ayondale!"
Running out into the open, Albert conjured ten fairies, and shot three at Ayondale. The professor just casually deflected them with magecraft of his own, pointing the tip of his cane at the triangular formation of fairies and ripping them apart with a Gandr Finn shot.
178/250
245/500
The professor lowered the cane, and eyed him critically.
"Ah yes, Mr. Prelati. I was wondering where you'd run off to," Ayondale intoned condescendingly. "May I take a moment to express just how profoundly disappointed I am in you?"
"Heh. Zat makes two of us," Albert replied.
Fish of Oblivion
Lemons
Mixtape Ghost N
