Shamitako

Kevin "I've had pretty much no training, just what Shiori's taught me in the past few months." Kevin explained, "She says I have a lot of mana too, which from my limited understanding makes basically no sense." He shrugged it off. It probably had something to do with his connection to the Grail, so all he had to do to find out what was up was to win the war. It wouldn't be easy, even with a decently powerful servant he was still rather weak, but he would do everything in his power to achieve his goal.

Tobias "Somewhere easier to breath." Tobias said. He considered this for a moment, the best place for that was probably Gluttony, although it wasn't the only option. Gluttony was probably the last place Tobias wanted to go, as he wasn't a fan of the cold, but if that's what it took... "Alright then, we should probably head to Gluttony first." He said, "You'll want to dress warm." ~~~ Two days later, the kids found themselves boarding a dimensional train. They were joined by Mr. Jeff and a woman that none of them recognized. There was a while where they had to wait in their rooms, but once the train was safely moving they were allowed to move about freely. There wasn't much luxury, for food there was just some crackers and water in their rooms. The transporters in each room could be used to visit any of the other rooms. Outside Tobias and the woman, the kids were also free to visit each other. (OOC: There, that's better)

Merlin "Cheating?" Merlin said, seemingly offended by the insinuation, "It wouldn't be any fun if I cheated." James dealt out five cards to each of them and scattered the remaining into a "pool" on the ground. Merlin accepted her cards and took a look at her hand. 5, 7, J, 2, 8 Her expression didn't change in the slightest, maintaining a slight smile throughout the ordeal. But inwardly she was ecstatic. No duplicates, a perfect starting hand. She nodded to James. "Since you dealt, I guess go first." She said calmly, "Do you have any 2s?" (Appropriate mooseekz:)

Lord Lord nodded seriously. "As you say, there's in fact quite a bit of 'hanky-panky Genetic modification shit going on, you don't mean to tell me you thought that hair of his was natural, do you?'" She explained, "As for the age difference, well..." Lord sighed deeply, as what she was about to say was disturbing and uncomfortable. "The people that do these sorts of experiments don't go around abducting children, it's too high-profile, most of their human experiments are done on their own children or even themselves." Lord was prepared to continue on and describe the raid on the facility where Adam was found, but it was at this moment that Morgan entered the room. Tai "Respect..." Temperance said, continuing with her disturbing monotone, "...Yes, respect. I have very bad burns." She extended her burnt right hand and intertwined it with his, but made no attempt to move it in the slightest. "A good game... Yes. Lots of emotion."

Tai Temperance saw Tai's request to enter her room. She was still seething, somewhat literally based on her wounds, but she decided to let him in anyways. He entered the room and was immediately met with a jolt of anger as Temperance's emotions pushed their way into him, but this was suddenly cut off as the room shifted colors to the negative of itself. [Music] Temperance looked confused for a moment, but this quickly left her. In fact, all emotion seemed to leave her. Her eyes appeared dull and unfocused and her entire body seemed less energized. It was hard to tell exactly what was happening with the color shift; she almost seemed dead. "Hello Tai." She muttered. She sounded dazed, like she'd just awoken and didn't fully understand what was happening. The whole thing was extremely unnerving. Blink Blink considered this information, her instincts told her that HUNTER had been doing just as Hiroki said and trying to get a sneak attack in. That whatever Hiroki saw was just a desperate wish for the world to be a little less cruel. But her instincts were known to be rather cynical, she decided to wait and try to learn more before voicing that opinion. She didn't want to bring out the harsh truths until she knew what the truth was. "What happened at the end of the fight?" She asked, hoping it would clear things up.

Merlin Merlin grinned and pulled out the deck of cards from their holster on her shoulder, she then handed them to her master. He would feel a strange tingling from the cards when he took them. "You'll want to shuffle." She said mischievously. Merlin was, of course, quite confident she would win this. After all, the only one to ever beat her at Go Fish was- Wait, crap, everything else is the same. What if he manages to win as well? This could prove to be a problem, but at this point Merlin was committed. At the very least, this game would be fun. Kevin "I don't exactly trust the Grail either, it seems too good to be true." Kevin said, "But what else can I do? I don't exactly have anywhere else to go about this." Kevin looked out the window as he drove along, passing by a rather grand-looking church. Even someone as poorly versed in magic as he was could detect the powerful defenses set up there. "And you're gonna have to bear with me, because I'm really garbage at magic." He confessed, "I can only do super, super simple magic blasts and barriers. They're not going to be of much use against an even slightly knowledgeable master, let alone a servant. Shiori will help with that, but she's not entirely reliable in a fight. You'll understand when we meet her."

Lord Victoria eyed Solomon suspiciously. She knew who he was of course. Mr. Davidson was playing dumb but she was sure he knew as well. "No, it is not normal." Mr. Davidson said, "Adam has become increasingly irrational as of late, I'm concerned for his well-being." "Mr. Davidson, don't." Victoria muttered. "And why not?" the Diviner asked, "Does he not have a right to know?" "No, he doesn't." Victoria insisted. Victoria kept watching Solomon, perfectly aware that they were discussing him as if he wasn't there. She tossed him an icy glare to ensure he waited to speak again until she was done. "He's probably our only shot at finding Arcturus." "Arcturus is not part of this discussion." "If you don't share information, you won't get any back." Victoria sighed. Mr. Davidson was right of course, but that didn't mean she had to like it. "Nice to meet you, Solomon." She said, "I am, as I'm sure you noticed, Lord. And after what just happened, I doubt you could forget my student Adam. To answer your question, no, he doesn't usually employ Amelia's techniques so recklessly. As of late he's become more reckless and desperate. He was expecting Ice Gryffin to take longer to inherit Gluttony and feels like he's been outdone." She paused, heavily debating whether or not to say what she would next. "Look, there's something important about him you should know." She said cautiously, "He's Tesla's brother." Blink "Oh fuck." Blink said, "I'm so sorry." She put her face in her hands. "God I'm such an insensitive fuck. Here I am asking you to do the unthinkable and you're already upset." Blink went over to Hiroki and put her hand on her shoulder, "Look, I've been cheering for you from the start. It might have started out because you were so obviously super short, what with those clunky-ass shoes you're always wearing, and I felt a sort of shorty kinship. But you're actually really fucking awesome. So straight up I'm retracting my request of attempted murder and instead asking you from the bottom of my shitty midget heart, tell me what's wrong."

Blink "If Nil doesn't help, I will." Blink explained. It was no surprise that Hiroki was hesitant, this was extreme. She was about to say no when her nose caught a hint of a rather distinct smell. Were she more observant blink would have noticed it sooner, but she wasn't used to noticing things and her nose wasn't exactly her most used sense. "Wait a second." she said, "Hiroki, have you been crying?" Mommo "Alright, good luck." "I've got business to attend to." "See you soon."

Kevin "Well, if any get close, you'll sense them. Unless they're Assassin, then we may be in trouble." Kevin said nonchalantly, "I can't really explain my connection to the shrine, I just felt drawn to it. I don't know why or even how. But somehow it's important to me." The van reached the edge of the suburbs and Kevin took a right, heading south.

Kevin "My wish is no secret. "Kevin said, "I just want to ask the Grail what my connection to that shrine, and by extension the Grail itself, is." He shrugged, "It's nothing particularly world-altering, but I think that's good. As for a vantage point, I don't see that being of much use. You're not going to be launching attacks halfway across the city, and if you need to find your way around we can get you a look at some maps." The question of how many opponents there were was a curious one. Kevin had read some information on the war of course, but it was rather vague about those rules. "Well, the only real rules are that there has to be a Saber, Lancer, and Archer. Which means there's at least two others. Beyond that I don't know." Merlin Several fireballs smacked into Merlin before James activated his Command Seal, but the instant he did, they stopped. Merlin made no attempt to resist, not that resisting would have done much. "That was terrible wording." She said flatly, "I stopped now, but what's to prevent me from starting again? You should have said something like 'don't kill yourself.'" She considered actually making another attempt and forcing him to blow another Command Seal, but thought better of it. That wouldn't help anything, it would just strain their relations more. "Tell you what." she said, "Let's play a game. If you win, I'll do whatever you say for the rest of the war without you needing to use any more Command Seals. If I win, we go have fun for a while before we start fighting."

Blink "The tenth God has revealed herself." Blink reiterated, "She's been secretly backing Supernova. But she fucked her reveal time, you're his next opponent and he can't do shit to you." She paused and inhaled, what she was about to say next held a ton of weight to it. "Look, Hiroki, I need you to do something a bit crazy." She said, "I need you to try your best to kill Supernova. Push him past his limits and force the Tenth God to come to his rescue again. There's a chance we may be able to stop her right here and now if you do this." Diviner "..stop him!" Sully enter the car to the sound of this yell. His attention followed the sound to find the Diviner arguing with a blonde woman in a purple sun dress. "That's not my call Mr. Davidson, you know it isn't." The purple dress woman replied, "He's already out of my hands. I told him he wasn't ready, he insisted otherwise. This may be the only way for him to learn humility." "He's not learning anything." The Diviner insisted, "All he's doing is trying to get himself killed out of desperation." "And what am I supposed to do about it? He won't listen to me anymore! Tobias told me about that gibberish he keeps telling everyone. I asked him to say hello, not blab about being my successor or whatever. He doesn't care. Lain was ready first, it hurt his pride and because of that he may never be ready at all." "And if something like that is enough to drive him to this, then perhaps he would never have been ready." The diviner shook his head, "Vicky, I know you care for him. He's not going to learn anything if he's dead." It was at this point that the two noticed their visitor's presence. "Oh, hello Mr. Ryke." The Diviner said, "What brings you here again?" Cardinal "That thing doesn't need any pity." Cardinal spat, all hint of shyness gone and replaced with a seething hatred, "She's barely human, let alone a proper girl. You shouldn't worry about her." Cardinal had already dealt with Temperance and knew full well what that monster was capable of doing to a person. "Your 'steel-melting punches' can't hold a candle to what she's done. There mere fact that the gods were willing to let her into this tournament shows how little they care for the competitors' well-being." Temperance had already lost, what was the point of loosing her on the competition outside some sick sense of toughening the competitors up? That soulless husk had no right whatsoever to compete in this tournament. "Take me to her, I'll show you what she really is." Aries "Aries. I'm confused. Do I even...want to win?" "I know I want to meet you in person. You can show me how that amulet works." Aries pondered this for a moment before smiling softly. "What you want is to earn the right to rest, isn't it?" "Perhaps this tournament isn't the right path to that." "I'm certain you'll reach your goal some day." "Even if you decide you don't want to win, I'll make sure you find your happy ending." "Pervert." Aries' AI said. "Ram, I really don't care." Aries responded, "I'm going down this road whether you're with me or not." "You're always so impulsive." Ram said, "Fine, I'm on board. But if it doesn't work out, I get an all-access pass to 'I told you so' for a week." "It's a deal." Aries answered, adding, "Thanks for this buddy." "Quit being so mushy. You're making me want to puke, and I don't have the stomach for that." Aries had made this choice and he knew what direction he was going. But there was still another choice to be made that weighed on his mind. He wished he could ask Mommo about it, but that was definitely out of the question. This was his choice alone. The right path was still well hidden from him. He had to choose his path soon, the Tenth God had already revealed herself, there was just no more time.

Kevin "Well, I don't have a plan for which servant we find, so how we respond is pretty much how you say. We may try to fight someone stronger for a little bit, but we'll run eventually." Kevin explained, "I've got a friend with a knack for finding people. We're gonna ask her for help and see how it goes." If Shiori couldn't find any of the other servants then Kevin had to admit he was at a bit of a loss. He was pretty sure they could hole up with her for a while and keep looking, but that still ran the risk of someone finding them first. He didn't want to get caught flat-footed, especially not with an Archer as his servant. Merlin Merlin shook her head. As she feared, this boy was just too great a risk. Perhaps a better teacher could guide him on a successful path, but she was not the servant to do that. "You really are the same. And I was really looking forward to playing games and trying food, darn." She said as fireballs began to form around her, "But I've already made the mistake of giving in once, I'm sticking to my guns this time. I refuse to help you in trying to achieve such a foolish goal." The fireballs, already numbering in the dozens, began to converge on Merlin as even more formed around her and followed suit.

Merlin Merlin froze in place. Not because she was going the wrong way, that was easily correctable. What caught her was her master's mention of setting traps. It was too much to be a coincidence. She half expected him to pull out a giant magical cannon at any second. She sighed loudly. "You know, you remind me of someone important to me." She said sorrowfully, "Because of this I have a question, please answer honestly: What would you wish of the Holy Grail?" If it came down to it, Merlin would go so far as to kill herself to prevent this master from acquiring the Grail. If only she had learned, if only she could understand how to teach him. She had done many great things throughout her life, but the greatest of them all was not a great success but a great failure. It might already be too late, but she refused to have any part in this boy's descent. It did cross her mind that perhaps he was different, that he might be more willing to learn, but her own fear quickly quelled that thought.

Strider defeats Slumbering Giant with Revenge Blast. Procrastination beats Lexi with time. Travel Phase update: screw my overly complicated system that even I can't parse anymore, time limits seem to work on me, so let's use those. There shall be provided exactly one month from this moment for the travel phase. You may still only go to one of the three main locations, but everything else is freed up ~Travel Phase~ With the last round of battles being particularly emotional, it was no wonder how drained the competitors were as they boarded the train. There was just one tagalong god this time, or at least only one who revealed herself, that being Blink. Of note was Temperance, who--in addition to being severely burned--seemed extremely shaken, her unease spreading slightly and increasing the tension for everyone. Hiroki Hiroki was alone in her room while waiting for the train to leave the station and free roaming time to begin when a tiny goddess popped through the wall to greet her. "Hey, you and I have to talk." Blink said, "The Tenth God has shown herself." Tai Tai was also alone in his room, but his visitor did not come from his wall, she was inside his mind. "Tai?" Cardinal asked cautiously, "I... I'm sure you're super confused right now, and... I'll explain everything if you want. But I want you to know that I protected you today because I didn't- I just didn't want you to get hurt." Mommo Mommo was also alone in her room. She received a message from Aries as her interruption. Or to be more specific, she got a rapid burst of messages. "Yo, saw your match today." "Too bad you lost." "The counter attack thing Strider does is pretty strong." "Keep at it though, even if you don't win" "Well... Just keep trying to win." "We'll get to meet in person after your next match." "I'm not sure what path this tournament will take." "But no matter what happens, I'll keep rooting for you." "Please remember that for me."

Kevin Kevin found Darien's weapon rather impressive, despite the Archer insisting that it was puny. He couldn't argue with more being better, but attempting to acquire weaponry here would be rather conspicuous. "Actually no, setting up defenses here would just make us a bigger target. In fact staying here at all is a poor decision. Right now we're kings of the hill, and while we want to be here at the end of the game, trying to stay on top the whole time would just wear us out." He explained. He hopped into his minivan, it was a good bit too small for Darien, but once the seats in the back were removed he was able to squeeze in. "There won't be any backstabbing," he said, "it's much more likely that another servant will kill them before we have to. In the case that this does not occur, we'll shoot them the instant the last opponent is out of our way. But if they decide to turn on us before then, we'll just have to be prepared. It's likely that a Lancer would be less likely to turn on us, but an Assassin would be much easier to take out if they do." Merlin Merlin waved at James dismissively, "No, rushing into a fight is a bad idea. And I want to try South American cuisine." Merlin appraised her master carefully, he definitely had something to prove. It reminded her of things she'd rather forget. "You're not a girl, are you?" She asked suddenly. In a poor attempt to avoid continuing that subject, she quickly went back to her Noble Phantasm, "My Noble Phantasm is only useful once I'm already at an advantage. And I'm no good at surprise attacks anyways. Now, can we please go eat? I want to enjoy myself while I can." She started walking in a random direction (coincidentally, this was directly away from the cultural district), it was clear that she had no intention of fighting anytime soon.

Kevin "Guns will be hard to come by." Kevin told Darien, "Do you at least carry a sidearm? That would be a good start." Kevin then gestured to the shrine, indicating his intent to discuss it. "The shrine is utterly defenseless." He said, "It's been abandoned for decades, possibly centuries, any magical protections it had are long gone. but it is important. The Holy Grail resides here, or rather the potential for the Grail to come to be is here. It won't actually make its presence known until the War has a winner." Explanations complete, Kevin mulled over how to proceed. "We should make an attempt to ally ourselves with Lancer or Assassin if possible. They're far more mobile and could serve to help us with scouting and occupying the enemy while you attack from afar." There was no guarantee of an Assassin being summoned, but Kevin thought it was likely; it would probably be easier to ally with an Assassin than a Lancer as Lancer was much stronger as a class. "It will take some time to reach the main city, are you capable of preparing more drones while we drive?"

Merlin Merlin surveyed the map curiously. "Hmm, I see." She said thoughtfully, "But if they're a powerful opponent why are we rushing to face them? Wouldn't it be more fun if we tried to take out some of the weaker enemies first and then face off against them in a dramatic final battle? They might manage to take down some of our other opponents along the way as well. It's a win-win-win-lose, no?" She instead pointed to the cultural sector. "This place looks fun. We're going here." If she was going to play this Holy Grail War game, then Merlin was sure as hell going to enjoy as much of it as she could. Rushing into battle with an opponent that could very well be stronger than her just sounded like a great way to lose before she got to have any fun. A cultural sector would surely mean plenty of games and interesting foods. Plus she was interested in the little nest of mana in the nearby industrial district, that seemed like it could be significant.

Kevin Kevin seemed utterly and completely unfazed by his towering servant and his strange familiars. "I'm not much for commanding, but yes, I am your master." He said, "I'm Kevin, it's nice to meet you, Archer. We're far away from the others here, so we have little fear of being attacked tonight." The bald man removed his sunglasses to more accurately scrutinize the drones. "It seems these are what you're all about. Since I figure you can't make them in combat, we'll want to prevent them from being destroyed except when using your Noble Phantasm, which we should only use as a last resort."

Merlin The flash of light from the circle slowly faded out. Sitting cross-legged in the center was a scantily clad woman holding a hand of cards. She stared at the cards in silence for a moment before looking up halfheartedly. "Do you have any twos?" She asked. Without waiting for an answer, she collected the cards together and slid them into a pouch on her upper arm. "No, of course not, that would be silly. You're here to fight a war, not to play a card game." She picked up her broom, which had been laying next to her on the ground, and jumped to her feet. "Well that's a bit unfortunate, because I'm just here to play a game. Still, I'll do my best to win the game for you. After all, you are my master. Shall we go fish for other servants?"

First War servant assignments: Kevin: Darien (Archer) Nadia: Masaru (Saber) James: Merlin (Archer) Erica: Ignacio (Rider) Alexander: Ciri (Caster) Sophie: Klaren (Lancer) Orin: Deb (Assassin) Eleonore: Twins (Zerker) Please post your servant being summoned beginning with the flash from your master's post. Also, masters, please add you and your servant's approximate location to the map based on where you summoned them at

I didnot no. I figured of they were needed then I could provide them when asked