voidtreckernet | Day Twenty One: Engine Room to All Carriages

I've seen heroes do weirder shit than waiting tables, at least.

[He laughed quietly at that, the sound hollow and a little halfhearted.]

That many, huh...? That's...pretty impressive.

Mnh. It's very much part of daily life- I once took a subway...ah, a normal, non-dimensional one I should note- to another city on a shadow resembling a train. I believe their partner acts as the conductor so to speak.

[Mnnnh. Something about that laugh though...] Considering the focus on 'heroes', and the small number however, I suspect the system from your own home is a little more tightly focused on some sort of goal however...

[Oof.]

It's a whole long and depressing story, and kind of a big contributing factor why my world's in so much trouble. There's a broken magical ritual that someone has to stop, and the only people who care enough to try need my help to do it.

[Shrugging in an attempt to brush off the gravity of the situation, Waver simply took a drink.]

...There weren't a lot of Masters that survived the last conflict. I was one of them, so a situation like you're describing holds a lot of interest for me.

[Ahhhhhh....that makes sense, she tells herself, getting her instant coffee mixed up as she nods. A situation of small numbers against many others, with a key piece missing...it's no wonder then, that the other is so tense.]

I'm sorry that the status of my own world won't likely contribute much then. I'd be happy to talk more about it of course, but it seems with any points of clarity it'll only diverge farther...

It's only a matter of my own curiosity, that's all. You mentioned beasts and heroes specifically, but who? Don't tell me there's a world where Cu Chulainn is waiting tables or something.

[waver has clearly not read hollow ataraxia]

I can't speak for Cu Chulainn, [she laughs warmly,] but my apprentice- a former client I'm sad to say- was once connected to the Sun God Ra.

[The laugh fades however, the smile becoming rather bittersweet.] ...Shirou was unfortunately...a victim of what's called 'soul death', however. Ra was killed defending him, from which point the boy was time-locked. The replacement found within the realms was Sekhmet, however; if the myths are similar in your world, perhaps you know of the one where she was Ra's eye? I suspect that's what allowed the compatibility.

In terms of others...ah! I was able to meet with Beatrice Portinari once~ [she gushes, beaming quite happily.] She was wonderful to talk to! Her official title as a shadow was 'Beatrice, the Lady Eternal', which was fairly interesting...

...Actually Beatrice herself was rather interesting in that she had a human life at one point, which is what made me think of her in regard to your question- most shadows obviously can't say they've had such things, but I expect that most with such direct connections to human lives did. I would have to look farther into that from home however, since as I said, most shadows don't fall into such categories. Instead they're what you would associate with mythical peoples, or gods, or animals...having a concrete name is rather rare.

Hm...so it's more 'concepts' in a sense. Besides that, it'd be unheard of to summon a divine spirit as a Servant. Demigods, sure--anything higher than that is far beyond the scale of the ritual.

[laughs harder in grand servants]

Gilgamesh, for example. Probably the strongest Servant one could summon, both by virtue of being part divine and because his is the oldest legend in human history. The older and more well-known a hero is, the stronger their potential--so he's close to the upper limit if not the limit itself.

[Beat.]

Kind of a prick, too.

Mmmm, in a loose sense I would say...ultimately there are a good number of 'shadows' that did indeed act as 'Gods' to certain people after all- and their power is certainly close to it...they're rather particular about anyone daring to contract them for so much as card summoning, to the point that some have created a competition out of beating the other to a successful summon...

[It's a rather beautiful sort of event to watch though. Ah-] G- Gilgamesh..!? From the Epic of Gilgamesh..!? [She exclaims, a wide, beaming smile on her face for a moment.

Well, of course...] .......Somehow that doesn't surprise me to hear...

[He doesn't exactly come across as 'nice' in the tale after all...] Mnnh, it's interesting that that be the standard for strength though, but it does make sense...for a hero to be known that long, it would have to be quite a persisting memory after all. The concept might not necessarily align with how it works in my own realm but ultimately, the power of 'memory' is quite impressive when it comes to the side effects in magic...

Oh, you're familiar. Yeah--don't get too starstruck, he was pretty full of himself.

[An understatement. But Waver looked thoughtful for a moment, then continued.]

It's a 'collective unconscious' sort of thing when it comes to Servants; recorded human history influences a fair bit about them even if the core legend remains generally true to life. So I guess you could say it's a matter of memory, sure.

I can only imagine...I expect dealing with him must be similar to dealing with the more particular 'gods'...

[Hmmm. Well, that aside-] Mnh...very much so in that case. The idea of 'memory' isn't far from how cultures such as Egypt's viewed it- as long as there were recordings of some kind, the memory of that person would exist to chain someone to their rightful realm after leaving the mortal one- something recorded into human history, persisting through a certain amount of time... ...I can't be surprised that these spirits can differ from core legend, when core legend itself often changes so significantly within the era of origin sometimes even...

Day Twenty One: Engine Room to All Carriages

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i almost used the round table cards but decided that'd be TOO MUCH sob

[laughs in saberfaces]

stares distantly at the sabercrowd....

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