Powder Miner

"Oooh, the door's closed, ooommminnoouussss," LOTUS remarked casually as he took in the environment (screen now blank -- he intended to give nothing away). Isobel's face was set in a grimace that was trying to be determined and was only half-successful: it was clear she was feeling rather enervated, but she also certainly wasn't going and cowering in a corner. LOTUS found himself thinking about two things: the strategic position as it was now, and as it could be if he tried Solomon's hypothesis; it might be a taunt, but it also might not be, and while that meant he could *maybe* keep her from thinking too clearly, it meant that if he tried such he also ran the risk of getting Isobel focused on and the group attacked with full power, which directly contradicted his goals. He would save it for an absolute last resort, he concluded. And being a computer from the 26th century, that thinking thankfully didn't take very long. First off, he sent a radio message to the other three leaders, to see if it got through, not speaking it aloud: "Arrived at location, engaging Assassin. Do you three copy?" LOTUS was soon speaking aloud, however: "Right, here's the deal, I'm not going to try to micromanage. She can hear me talk, and we don't have time. Just do your best to kill as many minions as you can, but if you need to set up something now wouldbe the time. Aurora, I'm going to need you to be able to immediately respond and help us recover after we're hit, and thusly, here is an optimal way to move fast and ensure maximum situational awareness and reaction time:" Pathing Advice on Aurora! [Pathing Advice: Aurora moves first next turn] [Isobel and LOTUS stats: 2 CON 8 DEX 8 INT 2 RES 2 STR 0 SYN]

LOTUS was quick to respond on the radio. "Yes, yes, radio works, great. Now I've got to go and organize my team." Before he even finished the sentence, Isobel was continuing to be his gopher, jogging her way over to the forming group. "Alright, alright, I've secured comms between the teams so now I need to learn more about you all. To start off, I will want your names so I don't have to keep making up vague descriptions, and an explanation of your capacities would be fantastic. I've observed your combat, but I suspect that you all haven't used everything you have, and it would be great if I could learn about them. I suppose that in turn I'll start off. I'm the Logistical, Operational, and Tactical Uplink System, or LOTUS. I am capable of performing tactical analysis and suggestion, which includes calculating optimal movement patterns, finding weaknesses for you all to exploit, and suggesting ways to fire faster through little quirks of efficiency." The woman holding LOTUS spoke up. "Umm... I guess I should do the same. I'm Isobel Low, and I'm not really a tactical person at all like LOTUS, umm, but I do think that I can maybe help here and there. I've got these healing poppies I've breeded, and I should be able to help out if any of you get knocked down or anything." She adjusted her bandanna.

Isobel Low and LOTUS Isobel had set off jogging towards Lexiel at LOTUS' semi-urgent verbal nudging to get moving quickly. While they moved, LOTUS was talking in his loud announcey voice: "Everyone I assigned to my team -- that is the giant laser girl, the half-spider, Venus, Friedhold, Laver, the goddess, the WW2 general, the girl with the bikini cloak combo, and the fiery psychic superhero -- I want you all to start grouping up. I need to talk to another team leader briefly, but I'm going to have to make things snappy when I get over there!" Isobel tapped LOTUS' side lightly, the noise drawing his attention; the two of them had reached Lexiel. "Lexiel, I'm going to give you a radio headset -- I'm putting all four teams in touch on FM 104.5, so take this and we can get full squad leader coordination." Isobel extended a hand towards Lexiel; when she opened it, her personal radio headset was in there. "Umm, sorry if this is presumptuous, but please take care of this, it's actually my personal headset! It's just that you need it more than I do right now, so..." Navin Mhasalkar "Umm, yes. Apologies for taking so long to find you: I, ah, was not quite sure who you were. Well, ny name is Navin Gopinath Mhasalkar, and I fight hand-to-hand. I have learned some Aikido, but primarily my attack power is rather augmented by my superpower: I create explosions from my fists. This means that I can do a fair amount of damage, and I have formed a technique which allows me to pierce heavy armor, as well as one that should be fairly punishing to light armor, though it may take a little more time for me to battle those who are in-between."

"...I'll admit, I made the mistake of not particularly asking about her capabilities during that meeting. I suppose the best advice that I could give would be, despite my earlier outburst, to avoid nettling her too much. She's a genuine noble, and seems to take that station... seriously, shall we say. She can take a comment or two, but she is in fact the type to make threats of minding someone's tongue for them. That's not an eventuality I believe is likely, but if you're going to be fighting next to her, it may be best to ensure your teammates don't dissuade her from cooperation. Do you have any other questions? I think I ought to approach Lexiel and give her Isobel's personal radio headset for now." Isobel, not having been consulted on this, does shoot Edmond a look LOTUS can't see, of wordless exasperation, before she sighs and nods. "...well, if it helps."

"Yes, I copy." LOTUS replied, through radio -- he didn't even have to make any actual sound. He continued, still on radio (and for now on the frequency specified by Edmond). "I'd prefer if we went on 104.5 megahertz, though, since that's what I was already set to with Ghost, who I have given a radio headset to, and I would prefer not to have to switch channels just to communicate with the both of you. As for short wave, sure. I've got a fairly powerful radio installed so I don't imagine that would be a problem for me."

Isobel Low and LOTUS LOTUS was silent for a moment, while Isobel started looking around for people, starting with Friedhold and Laver -- if she saw either, she would wave them over. "...hmm. Interesting, there are multiple variables for me to play with here in regards to which team has the most need of Silef, but I'm not quite sure how to weight each variable in importance. Numbers already planned for, expected threat... however, if for now I take both into account then I will likely want to have Silef on the team dealing with Berserker. That team doesn't have as many people as the team for Assassin, which I very specifically made large, but perhaps it would be a poor idea to underestimate the other Servant. Yeah. Alright, send my reply over to Silef: It would be best if she were to join the team assaulting Berserker, and if she's going to meet us out here to join said team before we leave she should find Edmond, who is the guy in the flying metal suit. If you have anything else to report, please be concise in doing so -- I believe Isobel has the right idea, I need to begin gathering my team." He moved his eyes across the screen, addressing Edmond. "I'm sure I can make it work, since I can simplify my radio output to pretty much just work on FM frequencies without worrying overmuch about special frequencies or such -- I did so in the last world I was in, after all. Are you capable of such?" Navin Mhasalkar The importance of things beginning to very much move and a team being assigned to Navin had done a lot to break him out of his thoughts, but now he was dealing with a separate problem; he was being assigned to a team led by a man named Edmond, and though referring to this Edmond man by name may have been useful for communication, Navin had no idea who Edmond was. Well, Navin supposed he had to find him anyway. After taking a moment to think, Navin moved towards one of the more recognizable members of the team he'd been assigned -- the man with the books, who he had only briefly spoken to, but who he had most definitely seen with his books earlier in combat. He approached Solomon. "Ah... my deepest apologies for interrupting, but you are a member of the team assigned to fight this Berserker, right? Do you know where I might find this Edmond that is leading it?"

My tertiary, Persona healer Perlita Diaz!

LOTUS shifted his eye-dots' position on his screen to look at Magna. "She's right here -- Isobel, turn a little bit, thanks." What was on his screen changed from a little stylistic face to an arrow, blinking on and off and pointing directly at Ghost. Then it turned back into a face, looking at Ghost now. "That's excellent news, I'll want you to take the other three teams as far as you think viable without straining yourself, then the siegebreaker team should engage the outside armies for long enough to grab their attention and get our teams out. The way back we'll probably just have to fight back, with your team's help, but given that we'll have likely defeated Assassin and thinned out their forces, that ought not be too insurmountable a problem. Here, I'm actually going to want to be able to communicate with you. Isobel, can you give that spare Overwatch headset you got to her?" Isobel, who had waved at Edmond as he had left, turned back to the people LOTUS was currently talking with with a nod. "Oh, um, yes! Here you go, LOTUS should be able to talk with you with that unless the distance gets particularly bad... I dunno, I guess that might actually happen. But it should be better than nothing." She presented the radio headset to Ghost.

LOTUS' emoticon eyes looked at Dackly, then Gozer, and Dackly, and Gozer. "...oh, well, if you ever wanted proof that artificial intelligence is fallible, it's right here. I mentioned you, and then forgot to put you in. Alright, a couple of adjustments! First off, since there seems to be some confusion, the team I am referring to as the siegebreaker team is the team Silef suggested to ensure our teams don't end up harassed by the enemy army before they reach their locations. The castle defense team is heading over to OUR castle to defend it from incoming attack, not defending Silef's fort. Secondly, I've realized that Lexiel and the (non-Lexiel) summoner from the briefings should switch places -- Lexiel, you're not going to be able to get a clean squad combat any which way, but since you can't summon Nobunaga with that ward in play, it would be better that you go defend our castle, and that the other summoner help keep the enemies here occupied with the siegebreaker team. Thirdly, yeah, I forgot about Dackly and Gozer, and they should be helpful to the siegebreaker team, given our most recent battle and how they functioned there. Wyvis can go from the siegebreaker team to the berserker team, based on that shuffling."

His conversation being cut off by the arrival of the messenger, LOTUS moves his emoticon's eyes so it looks like they're looking at him. "Yes, but you're going to have to give me a moment, because this is going to take a bit of thought. Alright, we're going to have four teams, and we've got 34 people according to my count during the last battle, that is counting Dackly and Gozer as a singular unit. We need to split these between the Assassin team, assuming here that we find her, the Berserker team, the siegebreaker team, and because the castle is too high-value a target to leave to chance, a team to defend it. Now, we want Assassin's team to be the strongest, in my view, because she has that dragon to provide her with more strength, and the siegebreaker team can afford to be slightly, slightly smaller since they will be active more briefly. The Berserker tema probably also needs to be stronger than the castle team. This comes out to a division of 10 people in the Assassin team, 8 in the Berserker team, 8 in the castle defense team, and 8 in the siegebreaker team. First off, the Assassin team. We need to be a little careful here, because not only do we need some area-of-effect hitters, we also need some defensive people and some hard hitters to deal with that dragon and Assassin herself. Isobel and I are going to lead the Assassin team, and whenever I say lead here I mean provide tactical advice if such is needed. This is our biggest priority right now, aside from the castle which has other defenses, and I don't want this botched, so I'm coming along myself. On the team I want blue dress, glasses, and giant laser girl, because we do need a couple of precise strikers to deal with that dragon, and I suspect she has the ability to hit more people with energy release like that. I also want the giant half-spider woman, because we will need healers, this will be tough, and I suspect that she will be similarly so. Venus should come with this team because he has that bomb. Friedhold also has fantastic area attacks which will come in useful, so he should come. Laver can come and help out with Assassin because I believe we will need multiple healers. The goddess should come with this team, because she's useful both for mass offense and precise offense. World War 2 general guy is far too useful a healer not to let onto this mission. Bikini-and-cloak girl has both of the damage capacities I need for this mission. Fiery superhero woman may potentially also be this way, and she can defend people -- we need that here. Secondly, the Berserker team. The name of the game is just snipers and precise damage here, because we want to kill Berserker as fast as possible because I've been told he doesn't reflect damage himself. I want the one leading the Berserker team to be Edmond, in part because I've observed him to be tactically minded and in part because he seems to have that technique to lower enemy defenses so he's a good fit for this battle. I also want the cowboy, because his precise shooting should be useful for taking out Berserker fast. Sachi needs to come along, because she has the durability to protect people from Berserker's attacks, but she is fog-vulnerable. Crazy book mage can come too, because he can blow his assault on Berserker early to take him out. Hikari comes here too, because we need a healer and she can help with that barrage of attacks we need. The guy with the bus should come on this team as well, because he seems profoundly useful for facilitating attacks on a single target. The cat-like AI ought to come here because her chainsaw may be helpful in tearing Berserker down. The explosion-fist guy can come here, as I believe he can do high damage to single targets. Thirdly, the siegebreaker team. We will want to mostly stock this team with remaining area-of-effect and diversion. I want Lexiel to lead this team, because she was a member of the briefing three, which I hope speaks for command skill, and Nobunaga has that fantastic area-of-effect attack. Also on the team should be the girl with the mech, because she can hit multiple enemies but is fog-vulnerable. I also want sunglasses-blue-helmet robot here, because she can disable multiple enemies, which is what we need to get our people past. The girl who summons a ghost has some disabling ability and should be a good choice here. Wyvis can help out with support in this team, lest I focus too narrowly. The ice mage has disabling ability and is therefore an excellent choice. I also want the seven foot tall guy with a huge sword over here because this team will likely need healing too and he can fight. Wyvis' healer buddy should come here too, because the other guy doesn't seem to be a constant enough healer to do that job on his own. Fourthly, the castle defense team. This is a little more difficult to plan for, since we don't know if they're sending out any servants, so I'll try to gun for a balanced team. I want the summoner woman who came with us to the briefing to lead this team, because she's the remaining "leader" as chosen by the briefing, and she seems to have a fairly versatile set of skills. I also want black co-- actually I think his name was Leon to come along because he isn't specialized in anything necessary for the other three teams, but we do need offensive fighters for this team. Guy with the brown cloak and what appears to be a nonsentient robot or doll can come down here too, because he is generally balanced. The vampire can come here too, to be a healer for this team. Dress-armor bow-gun girl should come down here because from what I've observed I believe her to have the versatility necessary to help fight an unknown threat. Ms. No-Pants over here can come on this team because she somewhat defies my planning scheme and is mist-weak. Leather jacket woman can come down here to be a damage dealer. Skeleton-mask can come over here if she wants to defend the castle, I have no reason to object." ((To clarify, including later adjustments: Assassin team: Isobel and LOTUS, Bridgett, Aurora, Venus, Friedhold, Laver, Mitsurugi, Atton, Nessie, Samantha Berserker team: Edmond, Jade, Sachi, Solomon, Hikari, Magnum, Ritsu, Wyvis, Navin. Siege-breaker team: Ghost, Hiroki, Halley, Kino, Dacklt and Gozer, Hayle, Morgan, Melina Castle defense team: Lexiel, Leon, Walmond, Soryn, Victoria, Empi, Liliya, Magna.))

"It makes it rather empty when the Uplink is gone. That said, if I can figure a way out to get transmissions out between universes, or make the quantum communication tech work out between universes, I'm golden." "Uh, yeah, I believe it's related distantly to an older drug, marijuana, but some people bred it carefully with other plants and within its own cultivar until it basically became super-cannabis. Lots of druggie botanists. Infuriating, really. As to doing my plant alterations without the particular hydroponics gear... yeah, I can manage. It's obviously harder without the various readouts I would get, but (and sorry for bragging here) I'm good enough that I don't need that crutch. That said, while I have some of my poppy seeds with me and a couple of miscellaneous fruits, with plants that grow at the rates before the agricultural-genetic tech jump in the 2400s, plying my trade is going to take a very long time. And, hehe, go ahead, I don't mind!" She turned to Dackly and spoke for a moment. "Well, I'm not sure exactly what I could do about it, but I could see if I could help you out a little sometime when we've got the chance."[/color

Isobel kind of nervously giggled to herself and adjusted her bandanna a little. "Well, heh, that would really be something, wouldn't it? Well, I guess I could see about that after this all with the Servants blows over, huh? It's not necessarily that I'm worried about not having powers per se, but it's more, like... well, I'm not a soldier or anything, I can't help feeling just a little out of place, I guess. I mean, uh, it's not a super big deal or anything, but do you get what I'm saying?" She noticeably brightens up when she gets the chance to talk about what she does. "Anyway, uh, I'm not, like science staff or anything, but mostly I grow food, wood, grass, that sort of thing, kind of quality of life. But in the 26th century we've got nearly instant plants, and I've developed kind of a knowledge of how to mess with plant lifespan or potency, etc, through very careful breeding. I can also do a lot to keep a plant healthy, but that's a fairly basic botanist responsibility. Unfortunately, where I come from, half of the botanists just take the job to get at the ambrosia vulgaris, it's frustrating. Hmm, actually, keeping plants healthy..." Isobel is suddenly staring at Dackly all pensively. The silence is interrupted by LOTUS' angry, electronic sigh. "You're out of luck in terms of photography knowledge. It'd be a different scenario if my Tactical Uplink was working, but it isn't so I don't have access to the Tactical Uplink network and communications with my fellows who might in fact know, but right now I don't have access to a *lot* of the information I normally do. I'm just stuck with my own personal data stores here, and it's a lot more targeted than I would like it to be. It's uniquely terrible, really."

Isobel shook Edmond's hand a little sheepishly, since the answer to that question wasn't exactly very glamorous or combat-ready. "Ahaha, well, I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I'm just a botanist working for the research company Nanotrasen aboard the NSS Exodus. I mean, I'm good enough at my job that a couple of the xenobotanical experts have brought me in to help sometimes, but really my job description is just to help kind of improve employee quality of life. I think I just got brought out of my dimension with him because I happened to be holding LOTUS at the time, and he can't do much without moving." "Some jackass in security decided it would be a fun time to start uploading all kinds of humiliating rules onto the pAI chassis, that I had to follow, and after I complained enough Isobel basically stepped in and grabbed it since he wasn't bright enough to actually bond me to his DNA. Isobel, by the way, I see people coming into the courtyard, can you rotate a bit to the right." Isobel did so, and LOTUS used that to start repeating his briefing for the people just then coming in, if a bit abridged. Isobel kept her head turned to talk with Edmond though. "Um, yeah. And then after a few hours we ended up in that castle. Uh... I'm not a fighter, really, and I guess that... is what it is, but at least I can help out in some ways. Hehe, the NSS Exodus isn't a very safe place, and I've had to avoid a little bit of gunfire every now and then. Plus I happened to have a crop of my special healing poppies in my pouch when I got brought over."

"Well--" LOTUS was suddenly interrupted by shushing and a hand over his speaker from Isobel. "...uh, sorry, LOTUS, but at this rate you two are gonna go on forever. Dackly, you said that Gozer oversaw your immunization, right? Gozer, can you tell us how that went? See, I wasn't unaffected by that mist like LOTUS, though it didn't really get me like some people, and it makes you paranoid -- it wants you to hurt people. What if you or Gozer end up hurting someone?"

"Alright, there are... a couple of issues with that. Alright, alright, first off, I don't know why you think smoking the mist is going to immunize you to it. That... there's no evidence that that's how that works, I'm a little bit mindboggled. Secondly, the reason you need to participate in combat for more than your stated goals is that we are not out to sate your desire for revenge. We have the goal of succeeding here, and we as a group have a goal that is not mollifying your outrage. Thirdly, your argument about being able to leave and surprise of all of that doesn't make a lot of sense. You'd be accomplishing nothing, and petrifying the statue and dragon in the first place requires that you have the time and distance to *do* that, which puts you in the mist in the first place. Your last point makes the most sense but it's not really been evidenced. You were able to petrify some of the mist, I saw that, but that didn't actually stop it. The enclosed space wall ability would be useful, but not ultimately useful enough to allow you to be compromised in the first place. And if you just come and leave, then you are providing almost no strength, when you could be aiding the other team far more greatly and giving both teams a greater chance of success."

"I don't really care. Your personal desire for revenge is not a good enough reason to quite potentially endanger the mission. If I wanted to satisfy that, I'd have gone all "hey, everyone who got mist-blasted, why don't you all just line up to go fight Assassin!" but the fact of the matter is that the reason I don't want you going along is that with that mist in place, at best you are not going to be fighting at full capacity, and far worse outcomes exist, like you freezing up completely or simply being killed. Think about it from my perspective, I am attempting to ensure mission success. That is my priority. Why, then, would I bring someone along who I know would be compromised?" Navin looked up. "It is not proper, I am not going to stare at you. And... alright, I think I could try. I should try, even. Gh... should I go... right now?"

Isobel and LOTUS "Absolutely. If they don't end up able to find Assassin, or if they happen to find another one of the Servants, everything changes. Other than that, serious terrain problems would have to be remedied by changing team composition somewhat. I could make preliminary kind of categories, I suppose, but I'm not entirely sure how useful that can end up being without a few things, like indication that there's a way we can get out of here, though it would seem that that's being worked on. Unfortunately, so many of the situational aspects right now are still being figured out that it's a bit difficult. Still, I can make at least one preliminary statement: unless the situational info makes it necessary, I do not want those who had been especially affected by the mist on the mission to fight Assassin. That means the superhero guy, Sachi, uh, and the plant woman and stone thing, I think their names were Dackly and Gozer if I overheard right, the girl with the mech, the fairy, or the one kind of edgy one with the sword. These people were briefly crippled by her equally brief appearance with the mist, and they would then be liabilities with her longer appearance, liabilities that we may be unable to afford with that dragon in play there. Also, I guess I need to learn everyone's names. What's yours? I am the Logistical, Operational, and Tactical Uplink System, or LOTUS." There's another pause before Isobel speaks up. "...uh, and I'm Isobel Low. Not quite the tactician he is, though, hehe." Navin Mhasalkar There was a long pause as Navin digested exactly what the sexual fairy had said... rather longer than it would have been if the pantsless fairy hadn't blatantly hit on him in the process. He felt an odd combo of guilt, shame, and being flustered: at first he found himself opening and closing his mouth a couple of times in response to her talking about how she'd, uh, "tap that". Then he calmed down from that, and her rather incisive insults came next, at which point he fell silent again, and dropped into thought. "Well... I am not sure about all of this "Dating Services" stuff, but... yes. I do want to make things right. But... I really am lost. What did I say? We talked about religion and destiny and that sort of thing, but what exactly about that kept reminding her of what she lost...? ...oh. We did talk about duty. That might have been a part of it..."" His face fell a bit, in pensive self-disappointment.

LOTUS and Isobel LOTUS moved his little emoticon up and down -- a small nod. "That would be fantastic, yes. Tell them that we're finally making steps towards moving out now. I can repeat the briefing to them if needed, or at least summarize it." Navin Mhasalkar Navin let out a long sigh, and was silent for a moment. The destiny-driven man wasn't offended by Empi's sarcasm or her bluntness, but he felt incredibly guilty over what he had evidently done (and to such an awful extent). He hadn't even realized it, but it sounded like he has been raking poor miss Saigai over the coals for the entire conversation. He felt like he could die and come back a bug. "...oh. I... I had no idea. What did I say to remind her of that...? I am really not sure."

Well, it seemed that most everyone was just listening right now, so LOTUS took the chance to address the couple of people that had addressed him; first was Edmond. "Look, I hate to admit it, but I'm not really sure. Even with all that we got told, a lot of what's coming up ahead is hazy because we're still reliant on outside information and help at this point; we may not be in the dark anymore about our overall situation, but that doesn't mean we have a lot of situational knowledge. Mostly I'm still waiting to see if we get our enemies' locations revealed, because that determines a lot, and then I intend to ask Silef if she has any way to get us out of here. Hmm, but perhaps it would be a good idea to try and figure out our own way out of here." And that's when Dackly came over, setting the crate of potions down. With an "O-oh!" Isobel then crouched down and began to riffle through the box. "Umm... I hate to be negative, but you said you're pretty sure, right? Have you done any testing?" While Isobel voiced her concerns, LOTUS had shifted his emoticon to the lowered eyebrows of someone thinking. "Well, that's good news if they do work, because though I still intend to have Silef tell us of any methods off transportation she might have, I can work with that! Should it come down to it and should these work, I could organize our parties as fake mercenary bands -- then we just see if anyone can get us outside of the castle and we're good. Hell, we even have Isobel's headset to use to coordinate with at least one person." The AI then shifted his face around to indicate that he was looking around, and upon seeing that people weren't flooding in, his face shifted to an unamused one. "Guess that didn't work out. I'll delegate specifically then. Sachi, I want you to head on over to the barracks and armory areas, and grab anyone who's in there and bring them over here." Navin had been rather silent for a while, struggling with whether or not he should hear Empi's secret, but (while keeping an ear out for the briefings) he eventually relented, also noticing how long he'd kept Empi waiting. "...oh. My apologies. I have gone and kept you waiting. ...alright, I may not like the idea of learning someone else's secrets, but maybe you are right and maybe it is for the best. What did you want to tell me...?"

Isobel (with LOTUS as usual hanging from her apron) stands in a somewhat farther part of the courtyard, the small AI giving out his own briefing. "Alright, here's the deal. For the first part of our meeting, we learned a lot of the background of what's going on here --a lot of it, thankfully-- and we learned more about our enemies. Then we managed to identify one of the other enemies, which should allow our ally's scryers to find them, but we're going off of a fairly low amount of information here in that regard. I'll cover these two aspects of the meeting in order. First off: the overall background to the conflict. This castle belongs to House Asterlux, of which the noblewoman Silef is the lord, and the enemies are House Shienar, a war that has evidently lasted some time and devolved into an outright war of extermination. Putting aside the opponents like the mist-woman for now, House Shienar is larger and has more resources, but seems to rely on mercenaries and the like as House Asterlux evidently has the better training. If we were fighting a traditional war, I would also expound on terrain and the like, but the fact of the matter is that we are not fighting a traditional war. Shienar has interwoven themselves tightly with five highly powerful individuals called Servants. Evidently borne of the power of an object called the Holy Grail, there were originally seven individuals, called Servants, summoned by this grail, corresponding to historical figures, and they would normally have been controlled and fed magical power by seven mages, the Masters... except that some sort of incident with the Grail (I would not be surprised if our enemies were involved, given our presence here) killed all of the Masters, and warped five of the seven figures irrevocably, and they seem to have found some different power source -- these five Servants are all in the service of House Shienar, and House Shienar both wields great might with them and, as you have seen with their forces, leans on them. If we manage to kill all of these servants, Asterlux will be in a good position to deal with them. The seven Servants summoned by the grail are as follows. Rider, a Chinese warlord on a red horse, was killed by Nobunaga I believe before the incident that occurred with the grail occurred, and thusly doesn't much matter. I identified him as Lu Bu. Archer, who is the one on our side, corresponds to Oda Nobunaga. Assassin is the one that we fought earlier, the one who summons skeletons and mind mist and who also has a skeletal dragon. She is a priority target from my perspective, as the loss of those skeletons would I think do a great deal to damage Shienar's forces. We did not identify Assassin, but we have seen enough of her to I think help Silef's scryers find her. She will not be an easy target, but I believe that defeating her as quickly as possible is essential. Lancer, evidently, is some sort of Westerner king who uses a holy spear, who has granted the other Servants and possibly their minions the ability to break our defenses and perhaps stun us in her presence. I have been told that her spear is too powerful to allow to be fully invoked, so when we fight her we will need to kill her quickly. The problem is that we haven't identified her, nor have we ever seen her. Saber is some sort of... antitheist holy woman, who decries one god, and has a connection to dragons. When she's around, ongoing magical effects are destroyed by the strikes of other Servants or her minions. We haven't identified her either. Berserker is some sort of horrifying monster man, covered in spikes and with a cursed spear. When he's around, the troops around him will reflect damage back on their attackers... but I was told by Nobunaga that this doesn't apply to him himself so if he is focused on and killed as quickly as possible, his troops should be killable. Isobel has actually tentatively identified him as Cu Chulainn, from Celtic myth. Finally, Caster is at the back of their lines and produces artifacts for their troops. While I would dearly love to see someone with his ability dead before they can bolster Shienar further, thanks to his position and our lack of information we can't get him until last. Now, I mention specifically identifying them for a reason. The way we are going to find their locations is by use of Silef's scryers, but they're going to be much better at finding the enemy locations if they are given actual names. If any of you think you know who any of the unidentified Servants I have mentioned are, it would be immensely helpful if you would speak up. As is, I suspect that we will be able to locate Assassin and Berserker and take them out. Once we have confirmation of enemy location from Silef, we can choose teams to fight them and work on a plan to get to them, but until we know who we're facing for sure, I don't believe that's actually very viable." LOTUS pauses for a moment, and then speaks again. "Oh, and I want some of you to go find whoever is elsewhere in this castle and bring them back here, and repeat what I just said to them... or if you can't remember, just bring them over here, I'd just rather not repeat myself multiple times. I don't want to have to run Isobel all the way around the castle, either." Isobel adjusts her bandanna with a little nervous energy. "LOTUS, it's not really a big deal, I wouldn't mind gathering everyone. It's not like it's a big task or anything." "...and I would like to be here in case anyone wants to discuss something. We are going to be hitting crunch time soon."

"She has a point in that it's about time we got moving, because they have Caster and Assassin on their side the longer we take the stronger they can get. From the information we currently have, we can likely find Berserker, and since we've personally seen her, Assassin; and I want Assassin taken out of commission as fast as possible." He shifted his emoticon on his screen to Silef's direction. "Thanks to just the scarcity of information that we have right now, I want to go out and hit these two now, so if you could have your scryers look for the two of them, that would be fantastic. Once the search begins, I'm going to head out and start informing the others and choosing who our teams are going to be -- I'm getting an idea of the questions we need to ask. I could also search for anyone who might be able to pick up the descriptions of the other servants, but that path of action would take some time."

Isobel let out another long breath. "Hmm... hmm... umm, I think I can narrow it down a bit between those three. Um, if we're talking about a berserker, I don't think it's very likely to be Diarmuid, because even if my knowledge of myth isn't as sharp as I guess it should have been, he was more the charmer type than the angry one, and Achilles was raging sometimes but for a very specific reason... I think I would recommend looking at Cu Chulainn first. As I recall, he had an itc... uh, okay, the simile I was gonna use wouldn't work, he was reckless and maybe a bit paranoid, he killed his son because he didn't identify himself fast enough, so he would be the most likely to be all berserk."

"You shot him, hmm? Does that mean that his retaliatory ability doesn't apply on attacks made from a distance?" "Famous European spearmen... famous European spearmen... uh, um, I apologize that my knowledge is fairly limited here, but I can name a couple. Try Cu Chulainn, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, or Achilles. I'm not sure how any of these three would relate to the abilities you described, but, well... they're the best I can come up with right now."

Navin exhales, a slight sigh on his breath. "You are... sure that I do understand what she has gone through? I... have no idea what she has experienced, and I would be surprised if you know what I have gone through. I, well, I am not trying to be hostile here but considering that I seem to have caused the problem and I do not know why, I am not sure that I would be the best choice. Ah... These sorts of things have never been a strength of mine."

Navin pauses for a moment, looking at Empi with that frown. He hesitates and then speaks. "If... it is a secret that she entrusted to you, then I am not sure if you should... unless you think it is absolutely vital to her well being, I suppose." He crossed his arms nervously -- this was a train of conversation that did induce an uncomfortable little moral dilemma in him, if just indeed a minor, interpersonal one.