"You surprise me, lad," Zouken remarked, "here, I go and provide you with a catalyst to summon a noble spirit capable of challenging the ones picked by both of the other founding families, but instead of summoning it as a berserker like I suggested, you go and summon it as an assassin instead."
"Considering we're talking about a heroic spirit who was well known for taking refuge in madness, and taking into account his state of mind after the fall of Camelot," Waver answered, "there was too good of a chance that he'd voluntarily keep mad enhancement running cotinuously."
Assassin's apparent disinterest didn't fool anyone.
"No normal magus could hope to support a berserker using mad enhancement continuously for the length of the grail war. They'd drop dead of prana exhaustion long before the war reached its conclusion."
"My crest worms can supply additional prana," Zouken offered.
"Your crest worms absorb the prana their host's magical circuits produce continuously, which overflows those circuits and are normally lost when not being expended for magecraft. That's fine if you just need an occasional surge of prana, but not so good for providing an ongoing supply."
"The only practical way for them to do so would be for them to convert some of my nerves into substitute magical circuits. Unfortunately, such ersatz circuits are inferior by their very nature. When they fail, as they inevitably would, I'd be left with dead nerves, and the worms would need to convert more nerves into circuits, which would fail even faster."
"I could probably live with the white hair, and deal with the effects that active crest worms have on the endocrine system, but I'm neither desperate nor suicidal."
"You can conduct the War however you wish, so long as you do so with some semblance of competence, and do not dishonour the Matou name," Zouken shrugged. "Though I do have to ask how you were able to summon Lancelot du Lac as an Assassin?"
"There was never any actual restriction requiring that only one of the Hassan-i-Sabah could be summoned as Assassin. Only the fact that the name of the class itself served as its own catalyst. In theory, any heroic spirit known for using deception in some manner would qualify for the class of assassin."
"My only real concern was that somebody else would have already summoned that class."
"Possible, but unlikely. The Throne of Heroes exists outside of time, so the order that the Servants are summoned doesn't matter. Heroic spirits who are only eligible for a single class, or are deliberately summoned in one, get first priority, then those who are only eligible for a single remaining class. Also, actual heroic spirits have priority over mere wraiths, such as the Hassan."
"So if somebody else had been intending to summon one of the Hassan earlier..?"
"The fact that you were going to summon Lancelot as one would've retroactively unmade the earlier summoning."
"In any case, having an Assassin who happens to be the greatest knight of all is going to throw everyone else off. Especially the so-called King of Knights."
"Assuming that the Einzbern actually do summon King Arthur, and not some other heroic spirit who somehow became associated with Avalon," Waver noted.
"Arturia," Assassin interjected, "my liege was a female. She merely passed as a male because a woman would not be accepted on the throne."
Waver blinked in surprise, "I never would have expected that. Who knows how many other famous people were also actually of the other gender?"
Assassin shrugged.
"It would probably be less surprising if Lancelot had turned out to be a particularly well endowed female. After all, the legends do all tend to agree that he had a disproportionate torso."
Assassin blinked.
"Of course, that would put a different spin on a lot of things. Especially that whole situation with the Guinevere. It's one thing for the queen to be cheating on the king with another man, but it's quite another for her to be cheating with another woman. Especially if the king is left completely dry. Rather brings into question his virility. That sort of thing tends to invite discontent and rebellion."
"We're getting off topic," Zouken interrupted. "What do you mean that the Einzbern might end up summoning a different heroic spirit than Arturia Pendragon?"
"Okay, you say that in order to successfully complete the Heaven's Feel ritual, seven different heroic spirits must be sacrificed to form the bridge to the Root. It doesn't seem to matter how strong they are. If it did, mere wraiths like the Hassan-i-Sabah could not be summoned as Servants."
"The key point is that they must be spirits, as in dead. King Arthur, however, is said to merely be slumbering in Avalon, recovering from his... her wounds. To awaken again to save Britain in her hour of direst need. Definitely not dead."
"Surely that's merely embellishment," protested Zouken, "not something to be concerned about."
"And yet," replied Waver, "consider Lancelot. He wasn't originally a part of the Arthurian Cycle, having been introduced by talemakers some five centuries later. Nevertheless, he's here, and he's certainly no wraith."
"It's no wonder that the Age of Legends lies behind us. We've made it so by our stories. It's our skepticism that has truly ended it."
"In any case, if King Arthur is summoned as per the legend, then there's no way that the Heaven's Feel can be completed."
"Not necessarily," disputed Zouken. "It would be possible to summon a replacement Servant by sacrificing an existing one."
Waver blinked, "I wouldn't have thought that possible."
"So long as a Servant hasn't been slain, and its mana thus absorbed by the Grail Vessel, a Master can sacrifice them to acquire another Servant of the same class."
"Why...?"
"A few reasons. Blatant incompatibility or insubordination being the most obvious. Also, a Servant might prove to be rather less useful then expected."
"Is it likely?"
"Only if they realize the truth, if Tokiomi or Kotomine loses their Servant before Saber is eliminated, and if they can trap her."
"Well, there's still the possibility that all this will prove for naught."
"Do you really think it will be that easy?"
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(Posted Fri, 12 Jul 2013 07:44)
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