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Nero      Tonight was the night.

     There were no more mysteries to unravel, no more secrets to discover. Everyone here knew exactly what they came for. And it was time to see this through to the end. There were no need for words, no need for gallant speeches. No need to wait for anything further.

     The building was the same as it always was. Dark and foreboding. But that didn't matter now. The lobby was the same mess it was before. That didn't matter either. The east and west halls were already explored. No need to go down them. That left the stairs leading to the upper floor.

     The climb is tense, yet uneventful, in anticipation for what was to come. For what they hoped would come. For the justice they sought to exact. For the wrongs they sought to right.

     The upper floor is bare. A long hallway stretching left and right. Doors line the walls evenly, and yet, one can already tell that there's nothing of any note behind those doors. What they sought would be found at the end of the right hall. A single door against the wall that stood out from the others. It was grander, sleeker. With some form of arcane contraption covering it that kept it locked. A pair of serpents coiling about in a manner that shaped into a door. Both stopped at the middle of the door, facing one another with jaws opened wide.

     It looked like something could be placed into their mouths.

     Something round perhaps.
Lancer of Black      Lancer of Black made a promise after he saw those children. He is here to see that promise through - to see justice done, though the heavens fall. The small beating he took last night is nothing to a Servant, though it does mean that his elegantly furred coat is slightly damaged around the sleeves, pieces of it wrapped around his arm like makeshift bandages. Over his shoulder is slung one of those nasty-looking stakes - the dual-pronged signature weapon of the Impaler Prince, the product of Kazikli Bey.

     The locked door does not stymie him. He waits for the proper keys to be inserted with a strange energy about him. Normally, Lancer is very calm, cool, collected, *reserved*. Even when his claustrophobia kicked in, he held back a great deal of his feelings, playing them off calmly.

     Not today. While his face is calm, his stance is not. Lancer of Black is not a patient hunter at the moment - he is a predator, an angry beast outide the prey's small home, searching for a way in. He paces in front of the door, already-pale knuckles bleached white around the stake's handle.

     This man has harmed children.

     If God had any mercy left for this man, he would be gone when the door opened. Otherwise...

     Well. Forgiveness is divine. Lancer is not.
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason has come to see this to the end. There was nothing left to dig up they had to hunt down the mad magus behind all this. It made her sick really to think about what they'd done and tonight she's not be holding back at all against them. Remora and her spider drones were with her skitweing along behind her. She looks to Lancer for a moment and simply gives him a nod, she's armed she's ready and she's more than willing to end this though at the back of her mind wonders, did this man have anyone working with him?
Kyra Hyral     A Magus operating in what was essentially /her/ backyard would not go unanswered. Kyra Hyral had been part of this investigation from the start and she had every intent of seeing it through to the end, if only because she too sought justice for the children that were murdered by this creep. As far as investigation, there was only one place left worth checking and if that did not turn up anything, Kyra had resolved to track down a necromancer for help.

    "...do you need healing?" Kyra asks Lancer, eyeing the scraps of fabric wrapped around her arm. Although she was certain his intentions for Ashcraft differed from hers, it wasn't an issue that would prevent her from offering healing to the Servant.

    Once they reached the decorative door upstairs, which highly resembles a puzzle door that Kyra saw in a completely different dungeon once, she glances over her shoulder at Scarlet. Dungeon experience has lead her to the conclusion that others here are also bound to make: "Scarlet, since you've been keeping ahold of the orbs, how about you do the honors?"
Scarlet Everille     A third trip to the same magus' sanctum really makes it lose some of the mystique. The crawling mist is as thick as ever, as is the atmosphere of strange isolation and stillness, even with the knowledge that it is inhabited, but its dangers seem to have been thoroughly tapped out, and its relevant reaches explored, all except for one. It helps that the know the children's corpses are already behind them, and so nothing that shocking can wait for them in the last room.

    Seeing the door, Scarlet's first instinct is to try and break it down by magic, but though she has the patience for what could be 10 minutes or 4 hours of work, she doubts anyone else wants to wait around that long, and so she'll have to resort to using the orbs still kept in sealed containers in her bag. She has some minor reservations that inserting them into the sealing mechanism might release them in some way, but it seems less likely than not.

    She plucks through the depths of her satchel of magic tricks with motions that indicate she has everything's place memorized, slipping out the silver canisters one after the other, flipping them between her fingers and cracking both the magical and mundane seals on them. "You all came back even after all that? I'm pretty impressed." she says, engaging in small talk to keep the atmosphere from getting too dreary. "I'd have thought at least a few people would consider their duty done and want nothing more to do with this less than enjoyable place." She glances to Lancer in particular.

    "By far not to doubt you, but I feel it'd be courteous to ask how you're feeling. You look a little roughed up, so don't be afraid to say something if you want to sit something out at any point. You've already been invaluable both times we were here." She smiles sideways at Kyra using the word "honours" for this somewhat depressing task, slotting each ball of prana into the snake's mouths. "With any luck, this will be entirely boring and ignoble."
Lancer of Black      Lancer gives Scarlet a very long and disapproving look from those golden predator's eyes.

     "I made an oath as a knight. I do not break my promises."

     He waves off Kyra. "No, thank you. I am long-since healed. I simply do not like walking about without sleeves. It is not proper."

     He shrugs at Lyria and goes back to pacing before the door.
Nero      With the orbs placed into their proper slots, the eyes of both stone serpents light up. Then they come to life. Their jaws bear down onto the orbs, crushing them and releasing the prana held within. That energy flowed into their bodies, tracing lines of light all throughout the ornate lock. Once it was done, both creatures slithered apart, revealing the way past before slithering off into the depths before thr group.

     And in that moment, a bright, white light illuminated the hall, flooding throughout the second floor and chasing away the darkness entirely. It was a portal. Surely this could not lead anywhere else but to where they needed to be. To where they wanted to be.

     Should they discard all doubts and enter, what they would find is....nothing.

     Literally nothing.

     A world of pure white, as farr as the eye can see. There are no features, nothing to discern where they might be. The only remnant of the real world is the doorway shaped portal behind them. Is this where the Magus, Ashcraft, has chosen to vanish to, after allegedly completing his research?

     It would appear so.

     Should they find the will to move forward, eventually they will come upon a moderately sized, white, round table. Around it are several seats. Enough for everyone present. And one extra. One that a figure is already seated in.

     A man of average height, appearing to be in his mid to late thirties. He is dressed in a black suit, with a red tie and a black shoulder mantle. His expression is calm, smiling even. "Welcome." The man speaks. "I've been waiting for you." His smile endured. In his hands were a small plate and a tea cup. On the table were more cups for everyone.

     He set the plate down and gestured to the table. "Care to join me?" His voice held no malice, no schemes. And yet, it was without question that this was the man they were after all this time.

     This was Ashcraft.
Kyra Hyral     "...huh." Kyra takes a moment to record the unlocking sequence of the door with her phone. "Fascinating. And fancy." she murmurs before slipping the phone back into her pocket. She squints, shading her eyes as the white light of the portal floods the room.

    Of course Kyra enters, though not without first drawing her gun, disliking the fact that they can't see what they're getting into. Once in, she looks around, "...is this the Root..?"

    They walk through the nothingness and Kyra reflexively shivers at the thought of perhaps actually being in the Void. It's unsettling enough that, once they find themselves confronting Ashcraft in his infuriatingly pleasant mood, all Kyra can really do is stare blankly for a moment.

    It's a long time before she speaks, her voice quiet and harsh, brimming with rage. "Why?" she demands.
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason understand the oath or at last gets the idea behind it and she knows Lancer has already put his Gil where his mouth is many times already. There's no doubt that he doesn't mean it and will carry it out. She had her weapons at the ready but she was not expecting this the world has become white there's nothing here save a few things. She looks at the man for a moment and keeps the weapon traind on him, she was about to pull the trigger but Kyra asked a question, her drones meanwhile make mechanical hisses as they see the target but have not been given the order to attack. She didn't get his behaviour after what she read in his journals and saw after his acts which spoke for themselves. She does not join she does not sit there's a very big look of anger on her face.

"Speak swifty."
Lancer of Black      Nothingness is...unnatural. It is a state not found in nature, a wide open space beyond any imaginable. It is something that should not exist, something edging into the reach of God. It is another blasphemy piled upon blasphemy piled upon blasphemy. Ashcraft's sins continued to mount.

     It's a testament to his self-control that he doesn't kill the man then and there. There are rules of hospitality, rules that a knight does not break no matter how vulgar the man, no matter how dishonorable the individual, no matter how many sins the foe. Lancer of Black has broken bread with his worst enemies, with men who would sooner see a sword in his gut than feed him, because nobility demands.

     Never has it demanded so much of him.

     Nonetheless, with noble grace, the Impaler Prince sits. He takes a cup of tea, pours milk into it, honey. He stirs it slowly, carefully.

     His golden, predator's eyes never leave Ashcraft's.

     "You understand that I am going to kill you, yes?" Lancer inquires over the table, in the most conversational tone he can manage - which, as it turns out, is a pretty fucking conversational one. One might almost be fooled by it, if they weren't looking at those razor-sharp golden eyes. This is unsurprising - Lancer of Black has broken bread with allies who would sooner see a knife in his back than see him fed, too.

     "It no longer matters what you say. Your ambition has consumed children, taken you out of the path of God Almighty and down a black and twisted road. Your words were invalidated the moment I found those corpses. You are a meaningless creature, one who has no purpose but to cause pain and suffering to the innocent, and what will spill from your lips is as meaningless and empty as this room you have constructed for yourself."

     Lancer takes a sip of the tea.

     "Make your peace with God, and beg Him forgiveness. You will find none with me."
Scarlet Everille     Scarlet backs off graciously the moment Lancer gives her that look. She knows one of those when she sees them. "My apologies for implying you would. I doubt we'll have much left to investigate or fight at this point anyways. Consider it misplaced politeness." She honestly has little idea how Servant healing works, since she's never seen it in action, only Gawain being shredded by armed police and escaping. She lets slip, possibly deliberately, a quiet hiss of frustration as the snake's jaws shatter the orbs. "I was worried about that. Hopefully they've burnt the energy opening the door and haven't just funnelled it back to Ashcraft. I'd prefer that, if he's still alive, he doesn't regain his sense of petty rage."

    She can sense the spatial distortion as a massive signature of translocation magic the moment the light shines from the door, shielding her eyes as it floods into the hallway and erases her shadow, but still fails to expect the result. She's been to enough strange, otherworldly pocket dimensions and planes of existence by now that she was expecting something suitably bizarre, not starkly empty. The table and tea set could be considered bizarre in its own way, but it strikes her as rather oddly quaint.

    Even as Lancer begrudgingly holds to his oath of hospitality, Scarlet is pulling forth a seat and helping herself to it as if nothing were wrong, like she had arrived just on time, folding one leg over the other and brushing down her skirt as she sets her bag down by the chair legs. "I'm actually curious." she says, not a hint of hostility, malice, or even aggression in her voice, welcoming conversation rather than threatening violence. After all, they have plenty of time here. "You gave up your anger at the Clocktower and those who had shunned and doubted you before in the process of coming here, I assume because you'd no longer need it. What was the other piece of you that you stripped away for the second orb? Or was that nothing at all?" She of course checks the tea for any untoward ingredients or enchantments.
Nero      The man gives Kyra and Lyria a look, smile ever enduring on his face, and he spoke. "Why? I assume you mean to ask why I've done everything I did to wind up at this place?" He took a sip of his tea as he thought of the answer. "It's a simple answer, really." He said after a moment of thought, looking up at the endless expanse of white. "I had a dream." He looked back towards Kyra and Lyria as he said so. "And in pursuing that dream, I chose to do anything and everything in my power to reach it."

     It was a simple answer.

     Lancer is given a nod as he seated himself and helped himself to the tea as he preferred it. The Servant's threat, no, a promise, spoken in a conversational tone earns him a smile. "I expected as much." He has another sip of his tea. Looking down into the amber depths as he considered everything. "I have only been here a few minutes, and yet, I knew you all would be coming." A chuckle followed. "I have no peace to make with God now. We did that long, long ago." Ashcraft said so in a nostalgic tone, looking aside wryly. He said he was only here a few minutes. But they definitely spent several days going through the place. Was time flowing differently here?

     Scarlet would find that the tea was completely devoid of poisons or otherwise untoward meddling. It was simple, black tea. Her question causes Ashcraft to pause. "So you noticed. You must be the clever young lady those children told me about." Indeed, he was lacking in certain emotions. Anger, hatred, rage. It was gone. Channeled into that red orb. But the other emotion?

     "You want to know what the other part of myself that I cast aside was?" He looked towards her and smiled. "Sadness, Regret, Hesitation." So that's what was in the other orb. "Anger clouds one's judgment, just as much as sadness does. I chose to discard those parts of myself in order to accomplish the goals I had laid before me."

     Another long, long sip followed.

     "...But I suppose there is no more need to words, are there?" He set his cup down onto the table and stood. "I have a journey to complete, and you all wish to seek retribution for my deeds, am I right?" He took several steps away, creating space, and then turned around to face everyone. "Then let us decide it here and now what will happen. Will I proceed? Or will you stop me?"

     He says that, but he doesn't seem battle ready at all. No auras, no enchantments, no weapons. He just stood there, arms spread.
Kyra Hyral     "No, actually." Kyra holds up a finger, "I read your journals, you sick son of a bitch. Anyone who crosses the line of murdering children must want something really, really badly. No, I want to know why you're bothering to invite us for tea when we're obviously here to capture or kill you." She doesn't want to admit it's probably going to be 'kill', not because she doesn't want to see him die right here and now. No, she figures she won't be able to stop Lancer from executing the guy.

    With a grumble, she sits down at the table and helps herself to some tea-but like Scarlet, she does sniff it first. Kyra's adept at handling poisoning cases so she's not THAT worried. "Justice. Yeah. There are a bunch of kids there who will never get the chance to grow up and see their Jobs reach their full potential. You're not going to make it to the Root because you will be coming back to the real world with us." Her voice grows sharp and she casts a glance in Lancer's direction.

    Looking away from him, she focuses back on Ashcraft. "Though before things grow violent, I have a question. What /is/ this white place?"
Lancer of Black      No sooner has the offer left Ashcraft's lips than Lancer's own open. There's no lengthy preamble, no long speech. Lancer's lips simply form five words: "Kazikli Bey ~ Lord of Execution."

     The spears erupt out of the *table*. They punch upwards, snagging the teacups and teapot on the way up. They go right for Ashcraft's hands and feet with *terrifying* precision as Lancer remains seated, drinking his tea as though he wasn't engaged in an act that had a very high probability of tearing Ashcraft's hands off.

     "You will not die here," Lancer tells Ashcraft calmly, "Because I strongly suspect it is what you want. Instead I will tear off your arms and legs and drag your limbless torso through that door into the real world to face your sins. There will be no tricks, no well-set-up rituals for you to take advantage of, no mystic wards or strange nowhere-realms. There will only be you, dying slowly and alone, faced with the weight of your own soul, if you indeed still claim possession of it."

     Sip.

     "And I will watch you die, and be gladdened for it."
Scarlet Everille     Scarlet gives something of a sly smile at that, taking her tea as she no doubt has a thousand times before, the picture of ladylike patience as she waits through Ashcraft's explanation. She really does seem like she's here for a friendly chat, an island of ambivalence in a swirling storm cloud of indignant outrage. "I'd imagined it might have been something like that. Doing what you did wouldn't be easy for anyone with their humanity intact. Stripping off all the ulterior motivations to both accomplish and abandon your work and judging it entirely objectively, whether or not the contribution to magic would be worth it, is probably the most practical way to go about it."

    She sets the teacup down. "It takes some resolve to carve up your own identity like that, but I'm afraid that as much as I admit it's usefulness, I can't admire it. Great geniuses and pioneers are revered after their time for their accomplishment being human. They stick with their avant garde theories even though it hurts them to be ignored or belittled, and they suffer through the long hours and less than enjoyable tasks with the hope of seeing it through. I can't be impressed by someone who abandoned those feelings to complete his theory. That's why mankind invented machines, after all. It has nothing to do with magic."

    "I do believe there is need for a few more words however. My question is whether or not you ever did reach what you were aiming for? Do you expect to go there once you die? You've been so kind as to wait for someone or other to come and verify your work. Are you trying to leave behind an impression so someone can tell your story, or are we to be part of it by sending you on your way?" She holds her hand up towards Lancer, to try and dissuade further violence that may potentially curtail her discussion with the implication that she's getting at something important.
Nero      And almost immediately, Kazikli Bey is launched. speaks erupt from the table, and attempt to stab into his hands and feet. And...well, they succeed. They pierce through, they tear off his hands, blood sprays across the white void, but...he does not scream. Or does not cry. He just grimaces. "You certainly waste no time..." He muttered, unable to become angry. Instead, he continued to smile even as blood dripped from where his hands used to be.

     Kyra's piece gets her a look and he shakes his head. "That may be true. But nonetheless; the world is full of evil. Every world has it's darkness. You can strike down darkness as much as you like, but more will take it's place. It's an inevitable." He looked about from where he was speared into place, as if having no sense of urgency. "You want to know what this place is?" A pause, and then he spoke. "Let me ask you in return. What do you /think/ this place is?"

     Lancer is next. Ashcraft nodded slowly, understandingly. "Yes. So that is the end goal. That is what the future has in store for me. ...And yet..." He looked away, off into the white expanse. "...That is a fate that I can't very well abide." So he says, but he's kind of stuck right now.

     Scarlet's speech earns his attention next. "You certainly are a talkative one, aren't you?" A chuckle escaped from his lips then. "I don't seek respect or recognition. All I seek now, is to complete my journey, and find the answer to everything." So he says, but who really knows what The Root actually is? "Do I want someone to tell my story?" He stopped here, closing his eyes. "...Perhaps I just might. And perhaps you are a part of it. Heroes who valiantly solved my mystery and come to see me complete my journey. To see my research come to it's ultimate fruition." His smile endured.

     "All valid theories. ...And so, in order to make this story a reality..." A second voice spoke up at that moment. Identical to the man being pierced. From off to another side, through the white expanse, it was...it was Ashcraft. Dressed the same way, looking the same age. It was him. And the one who was speared by Kaziki Bey was also there. There were two of them.

     "My journey can't be hindered. I will continue ever onwards."
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason gets the answer in simple form she gets what happened he stripped out things from himself he's less of a whole than he was before and she's just left staring. That sort of magic is not normal for Galandia she lowers her pistol slightly for the moment as there are better judges here. Lancer himself has actual experiance in laying down the law. A harsh law but he seemed to be fair about it. She will not be rude and takes the tea it's not too shabby. She now listens as Scarlet askes her questions and damn Lancer is a very scary man. She ressolves to never go into detail about her family's history on Levithan that would end badly.

She has finished her tea and it's a good thing too or she'd been spitting it out all over the place at the second voice and man. She now looks for a moment she peers.

"Wait there are now two of you?"

She sets the cup down now and stares at both of them intently.

"So you say you can not be stopepd but explain why are there two of you now?"
Kyra Hyral     Kyra flinches as Lancer acts, spearing everything that can be speared. She doesn't fear for herself, though, knowing that the control over Kazikli Bey afforded friendlies safety if they remained still. But it comes to a shock to see that he didn't immediately kill Ashcraft, professing suspicion for what might happen if he died here.

    "I had the same worry myself, actually, since you spoke so calmly of continuing your journey and providing us with 'what we wanted.'" Kyra says, putting the teacup down by hanging it from the tip of one of Lancer's spears. "I think this place is the Void. I don't know how you managed to recreate it but the fact that it's here is not good."

    Kyra carefully stands, minding the spears, her gaze looking up at the second Ashcraft sharply, "So that's what the 'we' was all about. What is this? Did you fragment yourself some more?" Even as she speaks, she calmly handles her gun, aiming, and firing at Ashcraft's kneecaps.
Scarlet Everille     Scarlet shrugs faintly, finishing off her tea before setting it aside for good. "A transitional space, if I had to guess. I'm no expert in the field of research you've chosen, but this doesn't seem like an end destination to me, and it'd be a poor choice to place a portal to something like the Root of all magic behind a door in a house in a metropolitan area. I think you wanted someone to look around, to see what you've done, and ultimately come here to meet you. You've been waiting around here where you have the ability to, until you've tied up whatever loose ends need someone else present."

    She then cracks another, slightly helpless smile. "I can't help being talkative. This is all very interesting. Of course you're going to see justice for it, but you already know that. We're not pressed for time, so let's sort it out properly before we never see each other again." She then turns her head towards the new Ashcraft, the smile failing to slip from her face even as she boots her extended senses into high gear, stressing all the way to phase 6 to try and discern whatever tiny discrepancies between the two apparitions she can. Is one of them real, are they both illusions, or is this whole space somehow a construct of Ashcraft's core essence? "I'm sorry to say though, how hindered your journey will be depends completely on where and how it coincides with what those children need, and what the people of Ramuh want."
Lancer of Black      Lancer stands gracefully. "I do not, in fact, waste time."

     Kazikli Bey is not a one-use Noble Phantasm. A small explosion of spears from a table was only one, tiny use of something that was much, much more dangerous, something that contained a vast and impossible quantity that, *through* quantity, could compete with Noble Phantasms like Excalibur and Gae Bolg. As soon as the second Ashcraft appears, there's another, identical explosion of spears - this time wrapping around Lancer. His spears are precise enough to simply *bypass* him, jutting under his shoulders and between his legs and just past his ear. When they run out of room, stakes simply appear *from the stakes*, stabbing outwards at odd angles on their way to the second Ashcraft. They carve a zig-zag through the air, no less precise despite how far away the second Ashcraft is from the table.

     Lancer simply walks onto the spears like they're no more dangerous than an escalator, standing on top of the points calmly.

     "I do not care how many of you there are," Lancer warns, his voice devoid of anything that even *remotely* resembles pity; in this moment, and in this moment alone, he resembles the blood-soaked vampire that took his name, imperiously standing atop a pile of stakes with his voice devoid of kindness, mercy, joy, or light - only cruelty, righteous, furious cruelty.

     "There are twenty thousand stakes in my arsenal. There are not twenty thousand of you. You are a butterfly to be pinned and have your wings sliced from your shoulders, to watch as what you have bled *children* like stuck piglets for crumbles."

     "I will drag twenty thousand of you through this door to your fate if necessary."

     When Lancer says it, it sounds like he means it.
Nero      Ashcraft smiles, but does not answer anymore.

     Kyra's gunshot strikes the second Ashcraft and he falls to one knee. "Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. It's a mystery." He grinned in a manner that was unlike the first one. Maybe he actually did do it though. There could be no other explanation.

     Scarlet's senses would tell her that these two Ashcrafts were composed of flesh and blood. They were identical, but there was definitely something amiss. They had very little prana to speak of. They were definitely fragments given flesh however, but their powers were lacking.

     Lancer's proclamation is met with another voice. "Twenty thousand of us? If you really believe you can do it, then..."

     Footsteps echoed. Only a few at first. But then more and more were added, gradually creating a cacophony of sound. From all around them, surrounding them were clones of Ashcraft, as far as the eye can see. Almost enough to blot out the white of their surroundings. "Then we welcome you to try! All of you! Come! We will use you as stepping stones to cross the gap! To reach salvation!"

     Interestingly, Whereas the first Ashcraft was kind, and the second was confident, the whole plethora of emotions could be heard through the veritable army. Anger, excitement, despair, sadness, they were all there. It was more than just one or two, it was thousands. All imbued with a little bit of power.

     And where they didn't fight back before, they did now. The Ashcraft army closed in on all sides, arms spread as they prepared to cast some sort of spell in tandem, combining their individually negigible magic reserves.
Kyra Hyral     "Are you not going to answer that question?" Kyra asks, annoyed that this pocket dimension didn't get an explanation. "Did you learn X-zone and banish yourself to it while searching for the Root?" She cringes again as more and more Ashcrafts appear, walking out, challenging Lancer to spear them all.

    Kyra points, "Okay then-!" she hears them, she sees their different demeanors, "Which one of you is /shame/?" She glances to Lancer, "If we have to keep only one, keep that one."

    Kyra too starts to cast, though the results of her spell appear far faster than those of Ashcraft for it isn't something that registers as super complicated to her. Seeing as they were facing a mage, Kyra starts casting Reflect on everyone-one at a time, though. Scarlet is first, then Lyria, then Kyra, then finally Lancer, given that being a Servant meant he was probably solid enough to handle getting hit if she didn't get the barrier up in time.

    "The hell we're going to be a /stepping stone/ to you!"
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason is now getting up from teh table and suddenly the fight starts it does not put down Ashcraft for good. There's clones there's so many of them and she can't see the white for the sea of them. She sees each one has had different emotions put into them.

"Wait did you shead all your emotions into each of these bodies?! So there is nothing left of Ashcraft?!"

She does not say another word at this point she opens fire with both pistols every one she might be able to take down should hopefully be able to dirupt the spell.

The drones don't need to be told to launch into an attack once they have been attacked.

She's only got one element to work with here which is air. She's very happy for Kyra casting reflect on her and she keeps on shooting, the drones seek to freeze or blast the mased clone army.
Lancer of Black      Lancer was not exaggerating.

     The sheer number of the magus is ridiculous. Indeed, it's one of the most abominable things Lancer could have ever conceived of. The soul is a holy thing, something that ought not be tampered with. What this man has done to himself Lancer can only guess at, but the *what* is irrelevant - all that really matters is that he *has* done it and that he has used children to achieve it. Lancer's imperious gaze is unchanging as he drags two spears out of the mass of Kazikli Bey.

     He leaps into the crowd like a spartan warrior. Here, a spear jams through an Ashcraft's stomach. It explodes into more spears, blooming like a flower out the other side of the man. Lancer rips one of the spears free as he flings another into the crowd with superhuman force. As soon as that spear finds purchase, it, too, blossoms. Lancer runs right up the spear, pulling a new one free as he leaps into the nothingness and comes down on an Aschraft like a dragoon out of a jump. Spears erupt from the pinned clone's torso, bursting out as a flower to snare as many of them as he can manage.

     From group to group the Servant goes, dancing, darting, somersaulting, cartwheeling, tearing spears out of bloody and terrible flowers and bringing them down into others. Kazikli Bey is a terrifying force of nature, for once the flowers have been planted, they grow, too, spreading outwards towards nearby Ashcrafts like vines made of murderous sharpness. Lancer coordinates their movements with frightening precision as he leaps and darts across the battlefield. It's almost like watching someone play Go, or watching a ballet, except it's a tremendously deadly, more-than-a-little horrifyingly brutal ballet in which the main participants are the dying and a predator.

     The Hero of Wallachia is unceasing. It must be exhausting, both for him and his Master. If those spears were magical, Lancer would undoubtedly exhaust him. It is only fortunate that those blossoms of wood and blood, those flowers of violence and pain, those tributes to the suffering twenty thousand men once endured at Lancer's hands, are made up of mundane spears.

     In moments it becomes obvious what Lancer's doing.

     He's pinning them in, forcing the Ashcrafts to break ranks and shatter their already-meager magical supplies, stabbing them at key points to isolate and spread his venomous wooden flowers.

     Were they on solid ground this would already be solved.

     Ashcraft may be thankful that they are not.
Scarlet Everille     "I don't think it's that simple." Scarlet says to Lyria, cooly and in control as she looks around to the field of Ashcrafts now surrounding them. "He shed external parts of his personality to reach here. This place is something of his own design. His own little realm. These are flesh and blood people, but only just barely. This field is him. Those bodies are his projections. Figments that comprise him in totality. They each have some of his soul, and some of his magic, but only very little. Don't be put off."

    She then grabs the strap of her bag as she shoots upright kicking the chair away from her as she reaches into her satchel like a gun holster and slips free a slim, lengthy container, cracking it in half and spilling a hefty sheet of some kind of extremely fine cloth over the table, almost every inch of which is covered in extremely precise, recursive designs in a spiralling, three point circle, etched and woven in odd metals and seemingly fresh liquids rather than woven in thread. She slaps both hands down on either side of it, causing it to burst into a heatless bonfire of eerie violet flames, frothing as if lit underwater, and drawing the shadows towards it.

    Undisguised, rank 7 magic is pretty visible. Over the tea table and several meters around it instantly forms a hemispherical sheen of rippling, iridescent haze, lending a strange, inconsistent distortion to things viewed through it, overlaid with layers of tessellating, glassy cells, and then an orbital constellation of boiling inky blots, tracing sedate paths around it, phasing through the floor where necessary.

    It provides no benefit to Lancer outside, but those within benefit from extreme redundant protection with Kyra's reflect, designed to intercept and nullify point attacks, ablatively weather area attacks, and diffuse the force of anything that slips through that. A triple layered, all-range magical defence. Anyone with an iota of magical sense can tell that it's probably overkill for Ashcraft's level of magic, possibly using more magic than he actually has, but Scarlet doesn't want to rule anywhere out in this weird between dimension.
Nero      Apparently they were not going to answer you, Kyra. Instead, they lunge forward, magical power buildding up to some manner of catastrophic spell. They are shot down, by both Kyra and Lyria. The latter's drones do their work of attempting to dent the ranks, and yet, there are literally thousands of them. They would be here forever at this rate.

     At least, they would if they didn't have a Servant with an anti-army Noble Phantasm at his disposal. Lancer leaps into the heart of the army, stabbing, causing more spears to grow out of the wound, and then moving on to another. He could not be caught by the hands of a mere man, no matter how many there were. The network of spears grows, soon breaking into their ranks as the spears grow, blossoming violently outwards to catch more and more of those Ashcraft clones. Whatever spell they were attempting to cast by linking their individually tiny magic reserves was cut off in short order.

     Scarlet seemed to be onto something however. This army of human clones, just barely qualifying as people, none of them seem to be real. In fact, none of them could be considered real at all. They all lacked something. Something important. But then, maybe that was the entire point?

     Under the combined might of the Lancer class Servant, the Alexander Academy students, and the magical prodigy, it would seem that victory was in sight. ...At least before a wry chuckle could be heard echoing in from all around. It didn't come from any one person. No, it came from the space itself.

     "You all have performed your parts in this play quite admirably. But now, the time has come to pull the curtain on this stage." Pull the curtain? How so? It all became clear exactly what Ashcraft meant a moment later. The hole leading back to the real world began to slowly close.

     Was this all a distraction? One to get them in here, and then trap them? Close them off from the real world? It would seem that way.

     It would probably be a bad idea to find out what happened if one got caught in here. But they were still surrounded on all sides, though the ranks were much less than previously seen, thanks to their combined efforts.
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason does see there are many here it be a heck of a fight and it is but they are very lucky to have Lancer with them as he uses his power. It's a carnival of csarnage but it's enough to break the ranks and take out most of the army of clones. Scarlets words make a few thing make sense to her now, she's not used to dealing with this sort of magic to be honest she looks at the portal and calls out.

"We need to move or we're going to be stuck in here!"

IF she has to she'll leave her drones even remora behind. They can be replaced if needed and she backs up the done's daily give or take. Lyria's making for the portal out of here.

"You..."

Her Drones are going to be the last things out and they fall into rear guard to cover the group from any attemps to delay them or try to. The display of Scarlet's magic is also impressive it's a different sort from her's but there's a lot of power and skill with it.

She's also very thankful for that reflect spell.
Kyra Hyral     Though she's not the biggest fan of Lancer, his presence here has likely saved the other three, Kyra recognizes. There is no way she herself could manage fighting such huge numbers, especially ones working together. She's happy to sit back and shoot whatever comes too close to her.

    But then the voice speaks. "Performed your parts?" Kyra says warily, looking around frantically for the source of the voice and finding nothing. "Where-" As she looks, she sees the portal fading and her eyes widen. "No! We need to get out of here!" Kyra says, panicking. "Lyria! Lancer! You both need to clear a path! Stick with me, Scarlet!"

    Reaching for one of her belts, Kyra pulls free a flask containing a red liquid-those that know her well will know what is coming. Still, she holds out a cautioning arm for Scarlet before she hurls the explosive mixture at the Ashcraft forces between them and the exit.
Lancer of Black      As soon as it's confirmed that Ashcraft is really the space around them and not the horde of monsters, Lancer's entire stance changes. He leaps atop one of the flowering death spikes, tearing out the spike. He does not banter. Lancer does not like *banter*.

     Lazily, he flings the spear in the direction the others are going in. It plants itself in an Ashcraft and blooms explosively, tearing him to shreds in the process. It keeps going, carving a corridor of flesh and wood towards the exit.

     Lancer is remarkably unhurried.


The Impaler Prince rips out another spear. He holds it over his head.

     "You have made a very critical error," Lancer observes to the air around him, "And I shall enlighten you to it, before you die."

     "That error is the same as many overconfident men make in your position. It does not matter who it is - be he a Turkish general, an arrogant Magus, a Servant convinced of his own power - the plan is not truly complete until it is *ended*. Telling your plan to your enemy is a mistake that can only end in despair."

     "Taste that despair now!"

     Lancer jams the spear straight downwards into the nothingness. Now that he knows this is a body - now that he understands it not to be a *space* but a *person*, or a *soul*, or what have you - the game is changed entirely.

     As soon as it's pierced through, there's an explosion of magical energy.

     The true form of Kazikli Bey is not the spears that jut up from the ground. That is merely a byproduct, an obvious aping of Vlad the Impaler's greatest legend. No, the true form of Kazikli Bey is that it is a conceptual weapon of the mere /idea/ of impalement...when it's channeled through a single spear, in Lancer's hands.

     The stake-blooms stop. The ridiculous anti-Army Noble Phantasm is turned inwards in a single blow as Lancer jams the spear as far down into the nothingness as he can possibly go. As soon as he's made impact, as soon as he feels the slightest tear, the slightest *jolt*...

     Spears emerge from *everything*. The spears emerge from *inside* the nothingness, tearing, shredding, ripping through the spiritual body with disruptive force. But even those spears are merely a conduit for Scarlet's destructive magic - and the spear Lancer holds is the source of it all.

     "This spear! Now!" The Impaler shouts.
Scarlet Everille     Lancer had just asked Scarlet over the radio how much damage she could do through a direct conduit to Ashcraft's soul. Her answer had been, quoted directly, "Damage? I can do better than damage."

    It could definitely be considered destructive magic in a sense, what she casts as she rushes over to the spear rather than to the escape that Kyra clears and ferries Lyria through, probably the best option at the moment. It's destructive to the cohesiveness of the space they find themselves in, and certainly to the army of puppet projections surrounding them. The nature of the spell that she draws at lightning speed, using her laser projector as a guide, isn't some kind of ethereal fireball or soul-shredding invocation though. It is exactly the opposite. The kind of spell similar to the explicitly one-sided contracts used to bind her Nobodies.

    Under other circumstances, this would never work on a living human, and she'd need more experience in the specialized combination field of necromancy to summon a dead human's soul, and even then she'd be only able to anchor it, but Ashcraft has deliberately shed his body, splintered his willpower, shed much of his humanity, and Lancer has given her a direct, physical connection to his core being. She isn't entirely sure how it will play out, but her ideal scenario as the adjuration is invoked is collapsing Ashcraft's work into a singular, easily defined point, whether that being a bound, Servant-like entity, or just stuffed into a convenient object if not possible.

    Lancer and Kyra had demanded that he be dragged out into the real world to face justice. It's only polite to oblige them, by her reasoning.
Nero      And then things go south for Ashcraft.

     Maybe if he didn't say anything, it would have worked. But no, it was doomed to fail. Lancer, now knowing that this entire space was his being, attacked the space itself, driving a lance deep into the very core of it. Kyra and Lyria used that time to escape, and Scarlet finished it off by casting some form of magic that was the opposite of flashy. No, it was something akin to a contract.

     Yes normally this wouldn't work on a human, but Ashcraft made the mistake of shedding his body. Allegedly. As this all happened, the voice echoing from all around them could only speak in a stupefied tone. "What? No...wait....wait!"

     But there was no waiting to be had. The damage was done. Ashcraft's body projections all began to crumble and dissipate, along with the space itself.

     Everything went white.

     And then it faded to black.

     Soon after, reality resumed. Where the space once was, Lancer and Scarlet now stood in a room that matched the rest of the building. It was far more furnished then any other room in the place. It had a bed, a bookshelf, a desk, a computer, lots of reference materials and ingredients for research laying about...

     Over by the window, they would find their target. There he was; Rutherford R. Ashcraft, seated in an easy chair and looking to be dead to the world. ...But there was a reason for that.

     A wispy, white ball of...something was floating in front of him, just before his chest.

     Perhaps Scarlet and Lancer's gambit worked a bit too well.

     Kyra and Lyria would be able to see all of this if they looked into the room from the now normal doorway.

     It was over. This man's research was done. He would kidnap and steal souls no longer.

     In a bit of poetic justice, his own soul, now recompiled, was sitting there, separated from his body.
Scarlet Everille     Scarlet looks a little bit shaken as she stands up. Probably from executing two very high level spells back to back while also maintaining much more than her usual amount of passives. That isn't to say she looks drained though. In fact, she seems to have just as much magic as before, as if it had refilled within instants. She doesn't seem physically exhausted either. Just... not quite all there. A little unfocused. Distracted even. Like she'd just woken up 15 minutes ago. It's not a big deal, and easy to miss, but it's there.

    She lets loose a sigh of relief regardless, tilting her head up to stare at the ceiling for a few moments before finally looking to Ashcraft's separated body and soul, pushing her raven hair back over her shoulder. "I almost didn't expect that to work. Honestly though, revealing that much about yourself and your work just because someone put on a smile, drank your tea and struck up a friendly conversation? In a room with a Heroic Spirit and a much better magus? No wonder he flunked out of the Clocktower." She turns to Kyra and Lyria waving them back out with a satisfied smile. "It's safe to come out now! He isn't doing anything." She then points to his discarded body. "We can stick it back in him if you want. He can't use magic either way. Depends on what you want for the trial. You two are the natives, so I'll let you decide, but I'd wager you only have a few minutes for that brain starts asphyxiating."
Lancer of Black      The nothingness fades away, leaving the room, the Magus, and the soul. Lancer takes a deep breath - the exertion was actually quite intense, though he's much too royal to show it - and wipes his brow with his handkerchief.

     A moment later, the Servant walks over, grabs Ashcraft by the arm, and simply rips it off. Then he repeats the process with the other arm.

     He looks over his shoulder at Kyra. "Heal him," he says as he discards the torn-off arms, "And then let him face whatever justice you deemed worth protecting him for."
Lyria Mason Lyria Mason is beating feat she knows and trusts that Scarlet and Lancer can handle this. She knows she'll get in the wya at this point she's well? Ended up in a thing very much above her pay grade in terms of magic. So she's beating feat she'll have to ask them later just what they did however. She does take a moment to look back now that she's clear and even more so shocked to see reality going back to the wya it should be.

She looks to see the man, she sees the light and she shakes her head a bit. Her drones thankfully stand down too, they don't come inside however when Scarlet gives the all clear. Lyria however does and comes to take a closer look as she looks the body over.

"The Penal system isn't going to be nice about this to him."

She looks to Lancer nodding approvingly she thinks she gets why he is saying what he is.

"I thank you for understanding Galandian's need to see justice is done to this man."
Kyra Hyral     Later Kyra would have to get the exact story from Scarlet on how that space worked. She trusts the mage would have the details given the interesting application of magic she just performed that Kyra did not stick around to see. But as she peers back through the doorway to the room they just left, the pieces are falling into place for her.

    She steps through to join Lancer and Scarlet, looking from the catatonic body of Ashcrat to the loose soul floating around. Before she can reach him, Lancer starts ripping off limbs and Kyra's stomach turns. "Heal him?" she asks in disbelief, shocked to hear this coming from Lancer until he finishes talking.

    A grin creeps up Kyra's face. "Oh." she reaches out, fingers glowing white as she brushes them against the nonresponsive face of Ashcraft. "/Gladly/."

    She'll gladly leave him with stumps, not trying to reattach the arms as she normally would in such a patient.
Nero      Saber, who was standing guard in the lobby came up to the second floor, and over to Ashcraft's room, poking her head in. "I have heard quite a bit of noise suddenly. Are you al-WHERE IS THAT MAN'S ARMS!?"
Lancer of Black      As Lancer passes by Saber, he just sort of points at the place where he discarded them, pats her on the head, and sweeps past.

     He has Stuff to do.