Josh b: Hakuno is the Master. Her Servants in this Fic are all Knight of the Round.
Akasha Bloodriver: I already answered in PM.
Boyzilla: Yes all hail Kishinami the new Lady of the Lake... uh ? Damsel of the Lake... no, damsel of the Moon Cell...
Boyzilla and Akasha Bloodriver: I like Artoria Lily very much, but no. The first Servant of Hakuno will be Artoria Saber because 1°) She is armed with Excalibur. 1a) This weapon was given to her by the Lady of the Lake and it would be a shame to write this story without the interaction between these two characters. 1b) Excalibur is a sort of "heavy artillery" among the Phantasm Nobles and against the horrors of the Old World Caliburn is too limited. 2°) Lily is TOO adorable... too much for this disgusting world, too much to be taken seriously by the noble Bretonnians. 3) I will also invoke the other Knights of the Round Table (at least Gawain and Lancelot... for the others we will see) and Lily does not know them! Once again it would be a shame to do without interactions with the other characters... especially as Lancelot will have a very important role, because he will be invoked as Berserker and is the son of the Lady of the Lake.
Fiat Lux
The vast and magnificent Royal Castle of Couronne covered an area of two hectares, entirely surrounded by high ramparts guarded by bell towers. Preceded by a moat, this vast enclosure seemed almost narrow as the buildings were so crowded. Thus there were common places for the servants, stores storing food and various objects necessary for daily life, dormitories for the guards, apartments housing the servants of the state and the nobles residing at the court. Of course, the most important building was the royal palace itself, it reached four floors and its splendid Gothic facade had more than eighty windows.
In comparison, the Hugo Tower did not look very impressive. Yet it was high and wide, culminating in six stories, pierced here and there by a few arrowslits. For entrance and single exit, it had an iron-clad oak door overlooking a chatelet bridge. On the ground, one could see a grid illuminating a dungeon that served sometimes as a prison, sometimes as a pantry.
A halberdier was standing at the door. He wore a wide-brimmed Chapel-de-fer on an iron camail that left only his face free and also covered his shoulders. His chest was protected by leather armor covered with small iron plates. At the location of the heart, he wore a badge with the arms of the Kingdom of Bretonnia: a shield parted blue and red with a crowned golden lion armed with a sword.
The man did not really understand why he had to keep this postern but performed his work with pride. It must be said that it was not every day that a simple peasant (1) was ordered to keep a tower of the king himself.
Louen Leoncoeur had returned from an expedition to the sacred forest of the Lady, carrying a strange girl dressed in brown. He had left her in the tower with a damsel in charge of watching over her until she woke up. The guard and the damsel were in secret by order of the king. For some reason, the girl found in the Lady's Forest seemed to be a state secret.
The interior of the Hugo Tower was quite simple. It was a circular belfry. The first floor was a guard room - for the time not used- the second a living room, the third a chapel of the Lady, the fourth a dormitory for the guards - also not used at present. The fifth was an apartment which, in wartime, served the captain in charge of the Hugo Tower garrison. Finally, the sixth floor was occupied by the bell-pepper roof surrounded by solid wooden hoardings that housed battle stations.
The captain's apartment was to be used to house a low-ranking nobleman and did not lack a certain luxury. The bare stone walls disappeared under tapestries depicting peasants harvesting. As for the waxed parquet, it was covered with a large carpet with rich colors. The furniture was limited to a wardrobe, a small table, a desk, a large chest, and - above all, an imposing canopy bed.
Sitting in a chair, a young woman in cotardie and wearing hennin leaned for a moment to wipe away the sweat that beaded on the forehead of the teenager who was resting in this huge bed.
The long brown-haired teenager's lips folded, her hands tensed on the bedspread.
Isabeau de Bastogne, a damsel of the royal court, leaned over the face of the teenage girl. In spite of rather ordinary features, the girl seemed strangely adorable to her. With a pinch to the heart, Isabeau sighed.
The teenager was dreaming and the dream was not to be pleasant...
Indeed, Hakuno Kishinami dreamed... or at least, she slumbered and saw scenes unfolding under her closed eyelids. But it was not a dream in the strict sense... rather a history lesson.
Hakuno stood between heaven and earth. Clouds were flying over her head. Under her were islands, a large ring-shaped archipelago.
Ulthuan.
The name imposed itself on her spirit, as whispered in her ear.
She saw the arrival of the Elves in this world, coming out of the gates opened by the Slanns. At the time everything followed the plan of the Ancients, a superior race of which the Slanns were only servants. The Old World was nothing but dust to the Ancients, a gearing in their plans that they set up on the scale of the Universe.
Then, just over seven thousand years ago, the portals of the Slanns imploded... and through the breaches appeared Chaos. The Daemons swept over the Old World.
Hakuno then saw the temple of Asuryan, the supreme god of the Elves, a simple altar burning an eternal flame. While his fellows hid in the woods and caves of the desolate lands and monsters roamed their kingdoms, an elf sacrificed to his god, imploring his help.
But Asuryan remained silent.
Then the elf threw himself into the sacred flame... sacrificing everything he was. He burned... but did not die. As he collapsed his flesh reformatted. It seemed intact... no, it was more than that... a divine energy had regenerated him, transforming the elf into something that was no longer really a mortal.
Again, the invisible voice resonated in Hakuno's ears:
Aenarion the defender.
The first Phoenix King.
And Hakuno saw the exploits of Aenarion, the elf who became a demigod. Riding a dragon, he slaughtered Daemon lords, scorched herds of insane worshipers, overturned the invasion of Ulthuan, massacring with his owns hands legions of deformed monsters.
Yet the fight remained hopeless.
The Elves were dying one after the other as more and more Daemons came out of the collapsed portals. Their courage was nothing in the face of the infinite legions of Chaos.
Even after Aenarion snatched the sword of Khain - the lord of murder- from his altar on Pale Island, even after adding its terrible blessing (curse?) to that of Asuryan, the struggle seemed always hopeless. Even the greatest exploits only delayed the inevitable.
Becoming more powerful and terrible than any hero Hakuno had ever seen, Aenarion gradually sank into corruption, undermined by the power of the terrible sword, by the despair and sorrow of losing his companions one after the other. Yet, thanks to the power of the cursed sword, he was able to contain Chaos... for a time.
However, as the last battle was preparing, an elf proposed a plan: to suck all the magic of the Old World into a vortex. Without magic, the daemons could no longer manifest. It was a desperate plan... it was also the last chance of the Old World.
The greatest magi gathered on the Isle of the Dead, in the center of the Ulthuan Inland Sea. As they prepared the forces of the four great gods of Chaos, they attacked and Aenarion fought his last battle to stop them. He perished, but not before returning to Pale Island and planting Khain's greatsword in his altar, thus avoiding that someone else succumbs to his curse.
Fortunately, the Elven forces had contained the enemy long enough to allow the birth of the vortex. As he was now swirling in the center of Ulthuan, the demons collapsed and died as fish pulled out of the water.
The Old World was saved.
Many Daemons had died, banished for centuries, and the others were now very weakened. But the price paid by the Elves themselves was terrible. Not only they had many dead in this last battle, but their greatest magi had sacrificed themselves to create the vortex... that deprived the world of most of its magic, weakening the Elves who were now only a shadow of their past glory.
The scene darkened, centuries passed... little for the immortal Elves.
Hakuno saw that the power of Chaos was weakened but not undone. What he could not accomplish by force, he tried to do by seduction. Slaanesh, the Lord of Pleasures infiltrated elven society. First, he corrupted the beautiful and powerful Morathi, Aenarion's second wife. Then it was the turn of Malekith their son.
Malekith killed the second Phoenix King, Bel-Shannar 1st the Explorer. However, when he wanted to cross the flame of Asuryan he was horribly burned. Carried away by his followers, Malekith survived. Horribly mutilated, he locked himself in a terrible black armor sealed with dark spells and powerful curses that infused his wearer with the terrible power of Chaos. He was called the Witch-King. He found refuge in the desolate lands that became Naggaroth, the land of the Dark Elves, perverted cousins of the Ulthuan High Elves.
The centuries that followed saw many battles between the two peoples. Totally corrupted and doomed to Chaos, the Dark Elves wanted not only to conquer Ulthuan, which they saw as their true homeland but above all to destroy the vortex to allow their impious gods to devour the world... because this was their madness and their depravity.
Again, the centuries passed. Hakuno witnessed the long war between the High Elves and the Dwarves... permanently weakening these two peoples. Finally defeated, the Elves abandoned most of their settlements and retreated to Ulthuan. The Dwarves, victorious, had borne a terrible tribute to the conflict.
Weakened, many dwarf cities fell into the hands of the Orks.
At the time, humans were still very primitive living in disunited barbarian tribes that reminded Hakuno what she had read about the Celts of the Iron Age. They were fighting on their own and faced with the huge invasion of the Green Skins (Orks and Goblins) that threatened to overwhelm the continent; their chances of survival were practically zero.
Fortunately, a Hero appeared, the powerful Sigmar carrying the Ghal Maraz hammer (2). He managed to gather around him most of the human tribes, then, at their head, defeated the Orks. By making such a great massacre they were no longer a danger for centuries.
But Sigmar's achievements were not limited to a simple victory. He used it as a foundation to federate the tribes he had guided into an empire. Thanks to the help of the Dwarves - of whom he was a friend-, this federation made rapid progress in the art of architecture and forging.
Sigmar, the first emperor, also became a god and his cult now dominated the Empire of Sigmar whose legions of pikemen, arquebusiers, supported by cannons and steam tanks held the Chaos and the Orks in respect.
The scene disappeared in a whirlwind of black steam.
After Ulthuan and the Sigmar Empire, Kishinami now discovered the Bretonnia. This land, once colonized by the Elves, was more civilized than the east of the continent... at least in the time of Sigmar. Although the present Bretonnians still saw the inhabitants of the Empire as boors without culture or refinement.
Also, at the time when the Empire was born, the Bretonnians refused any involvement. They remained thus divided, but relative to the shelter from Chaos by the seas, and the mountain ranges populated by Dwarves, and by the deep forests where the survivors of the High Elven colonies had become the Wood Elves.
However "relative to the shelter" meant that from time to time major plagues were falling on this country torn into rival counties and duchies.
Then Gilles the Breton appeared.
His first known feat was to kill the great Red Dragon Smearghus. Then, a gigantic "Waaaagh!" (3) fell on the Bretonnia. The Orks and Goblins were so numerous that they could simultaneously attack all feudal domains, preventing the Bretonnians from helping each other.
At the same time, chaotic pirates from Norsca and an army of undead began to ravage Bretonnnia. Faced with this avalanche of curses, the country seemed doomed.
It was at this moment that the Lady of the Lake appeared for the first time, and she presented herself to Gilles le Breton. The Lady made Gilles and his companions drink the sacred cup she kept. The Grail filled them with holy power; their eyes were now burning with a mystical fire. The Lady also gave a banner representing her face to Gilles le Breton, ordering him to deliver Bretonnia from the calamities that threatened her.
The knights persuaded to gather for their last stand had become the first Knights of the Grail.
In twelve battles, normally impossible to win, the Knights of the Grail crushed Beastmen, Vampires, Green Skins and Chaos creatures, breaking the unspeakable coalition that had risen against them.
Severely wounded at the end of the conflict, Gilles le Breton was taken to the island in the center of Lady's Lake. He would still remain there. Whenever Bretonnia faced great dangers, the Green Knight appeared and some say that he is the specter of Gilles raised from the dead to keep the promise he had made to return to the hour of the greatest perils.
Hakuno Kishinami opened her eyes, her heart beating against her ribs. She uttered a small scream and stood up.
What did she see?
Her mind was confused. Everything was mixed in her head... Ulthuan and the founding of the Empire, the portals of the Slanns and the death of Gilles the Breton...
"Are you all right, damsel?"
Hakuno turned aside to see a beautiful young woman who had just risen from a chair next to her bed. She wore a long medieval dress with trailing sleeves. The fabric, red velvet, was embroidered with gold. She wore a two-horned hennin covered with a fine silk veil.
Without answering, the young winner of the Grail War looked around. It was not the infirmary of the Tsukumihara Academy or My Room... besides...
Kishinami moved her hand to her head, groaning.
Her last memory... a sea of 0 and 1 where she dissolved... the Moon Cell Core. She had won seven fights against as many Masters before facing the ultimate obstacle Twice H. Pieceman and his Servant Saver... Buddha himself. Only to be considered a bug by the Moon cell and eradicated.
She was dead... if a Moon Cell program that gained autonomy was ever alive.
Then why... why was she there in that bed?
- Damsel, do you understand me?
Torn from her stormy thoughts, Hakuno bowed slightly forward:
- I understand, excuse me... I was just surprised. Where am I?
- At the castle of King Louen Leoncoeur, at Couronne.
The term was strangely familiar...
- In Bretonnia?
The beautiful woman in medieval dress bowed slightly.
- Absolutely!
The dream... no, it wasn't a dream. The headache she felt, Kishinami had already had it after saving Rin from her fight against Rani... where was it the other way around? Her memories of the Grail War were strangely blurred. In any case, it was the remnants left by prolonged contact with the Moon Cell. She shook her head hard to try to dispel the unpleasant feeling of being in cotton. Hakuno was certain that all this recent knowledge about the countries and the history of this world could only have been communicated to her by the computer made of photonic crystals. The beautiful aristocrat who had watched her seemed not to notice her trouble, and resumed the conversation: "My name is Isabeau de Bastogne, a damsel at the king's court. May I ask your name?"
- Hakuno Kishinami.
The damsel got up, opened a small pot of worked metal and poured a little white powder at the bottom of a glass that she filled with wine before handing it to her guest:
- Drink, it will do you good, it is mandrake. It will make you magical and physical energy.
Kishinami looked at the glass slightly yellowish, but cut with art, filled with a red liquid: "Alcohol? Uh... I'm not of age... could I have water?"
Isabeau had a chuckle:
- I do not know where you come from or what you mean by "I'm not of age", but I would not advise you to drink water here. To have pure water, you have to look for it in the mountains... finally in the mountains away from the Orks camps and the dwarf mines. Everywhere else it is polluted by agriculture, industry or Beastmen. Nobles drink wine, farmers drink cider, beer or verjus.
Hakuno cautiously dipped the lips in the Bordeau liquid. The taste seemed acidic and fruity, a little unpleasant.
Isabeau looked at her with interest:
- What did you mean by "I'm not of age ", damsel Kishinami?
- Uh... I'm only 16 years old...
- Oh? And you are not considered an adult?
Hakuno shook her head negatively.
- I see... here we marry at fifteen years old. In Bretonnia you are therefore adult and of age to have children (4).
Kishinami remained silent while finishing her drink then raised leaning on Isabeau. After putting on her shoes and her brown jacket, the teen girl allowed herself to be driven to the basement.
As they went down the spiral staircase, Isabeau de Bastogne explained:
- King Louen wants to see you. We will go through a secret passage that connects this tower to the palace.
The beautiful damsel dropped the bottom of her dress which she held with one hand and grabbed a torch which she pulled down. In a cavernous scraping, a piece of wall slipped sideways. Keeping the torch in hand, she drew from her purse a small vial of oil and poured a drop on the torch. Then she whispered a short incantation:
- Luminescence!
To the motto, the torch surrounded itself with a soft and silver light. Hakuno who had seen demonstrations of Magecraft much more impressive with her Servant Caster did not flinch. Yet, a few moments later, she rubbed her forehead... her Servant was indeed a magical fox girl? Then why did she also remember an archer dressed in red?
Being immersed in the ocean of Moon Cell Core information had definitely strange side effects...
King Louen was renowned for his bravery and chivalrous spirit, often compared to the early Companions of the Grail themselves. Swordsman, warlord, devout, he was respected by the nobles and loved by the peasants whom he treated with meekness.
He was also a statesman who worked several hours a day reading reports and signing decrees.
Two large tapestries covered the walls of his private office, both depicting scenes of grandiose battles. On the first, we saw Jehanne de Lyonesse blessing the armies after the lifting of the siege of Couronne. The only female knight in history stood on horseback, in armor, but bare head, her black hair cut like a page. With one hand she wielded a sword with a pommel inlaid with a ruby; with the other, she held a banner representing a fleur-de-lys. Hung on the neck of his mount, her kite shield was emblazoned by a golden lion's head.
The second tapestry showed a gigantic melee where knights and pedestrians faced a mixture of Beastmen and Undead. In the sky, swarms of bats and decomposed wyvern ridden by vampires fought against pegasus-mounted knights. In the foreground, Gilles le Breton stood on a white steed and wielded a sword haloed in golden fire.
The rest of the room was furnished with varnished wood cabinets and a large fireplace for the time off. Two large mullioned windows decorated with small diamond-shaped tiles illuminated the king's work table with a little yellow light. Thick bundles of parchment formed several piles.
While the king rested his pen, sanding before affixing his seal to the bottom of a decree which he approved, a scraping of stone on the stone raised the two hounds sleeping by the chimney.
Louen straightened himself, taking in hand his silverlite sword impregnated with the magic of the Lady. The secret passage was... secret precisely and kept at all its ends by faithful men, but what king abandoned prudence? Treason and poison had rolled many crowns in the mud, much more than the fate of weapons and battles.
However, he smiled when he saw Isabeau de Bastogne escorting the stranger... ah, yes, the Enchantress Fairy had called her Hakuno Kishinami.
- On behalf of myself and the proud Bretonnia, I welcome you to my castle, Victor of the Moon. May your arrival mark a beneficial turning point in the long war between us and the Powers of the Ruin. I am Louen Leoncoeur, King and Knight of the Grail.
The next hour was very instructive and also very... oppressive. Hakuno learned that she had appeared in one of the sacred sites of the local religion, preceded by various signs presenting her as an envoy of the "Lunar Grail". Bretonnia was about to start a crusade against the Powers of Ruin, that is to say, the forces of Chaos whose atrocious exactions she had seen in her dreams. Suffice to say that her arrival at this precise moment and in such circumstances made that King Louen Leoncoeur had some expectations... Hakuno felt absolutely not pressured... absolutely not...
Silently, Hakuno devoted the Moon Cell to eternal damnation... this soulless thing kept pushing her to one side or the other, without sparing and without explaining anything. It didn't care if she was trapped in a deadly tournament or sent to fight the Chaos personified. The Moon Cell treated her like a pawn on a chessboard.
However, she agreed with the king-knight explanations. Louen Leoncoeur was not responsible for what had happened to her and Kishinami could not blame him for hoping much for her. However, the winner of the Moon Cell Grail War did not want to lie about her abilities, if only by omission.
King Louen listened often nodding and asking for clarification. Finally, he stroked his short black beard: "I see, damsel Kishinami. You are a sort of novice in magic..."
The sentence received an affirmative nod from the little Japanese girl.
"... who had participated in a conflict between confirmed magi, clashing through "Servant"...the ghosts of deceased heroes... to obtain a wish from the "Moon Cell", a kind of god who is the Grail of your world."
A new sign of confirmation.
- Despite all the trials, you have triumphed over all your opponents. Then reached the Grail you defeated its last defender, a god...
- My Servant defeated Saver.
As Isabeau looked at her with a grumbling air, Hakuno added:
- ...Your Majesty.
Accustomed to the quasi-veneration whose subjects surrounded him, Louen smiled with amusement. The teenager did not seek to insult him. Only, she wasn't used to being in the presence of a king. Moreover, since she was called Sovereign of the Moon Cell, one could say that Hakuno was of the same rank as him.
- I really don't agree with you, damsel.
As Kishinami bowed his head to the side, taking a questioning look, Isabeau seemed to choke and looked away. King Louen coughed to mask his trouble:
- I mean, I doubt that your assistance was as insignificant as you say. The Lady encourages modesty, but your behavior is rather self-destructive. Do not deny your achievements as they honor you. Moreover, to diminish your merits is to make a mockery of your opponents. On the contrary, the triumphant must recognize the merits of those he has defeated.
Archer... no, Saber... said something similar to her...
"Yes... " Hakuno took a quick look at Isabeau and added a late "Your Majesty". After a moment of hesitation, the Inheritor of the Moon replied: "But I'm not good at anything without Servant... I only know two Codes Cast... I mean two spells."
The king approved with a gesture of the hand: "So you must call upon a Servant."
Hakuno looked at the faded command spells on her hand:
- Yes... I think... but I don't really know how to do it.
Louen contented himself with a smile, pointing to the ring on the teenager's finger:
- The Enchantress Fairy said that this ring binds you to the Lunar Grail and that its power and knowledge are infinite. In the cult of the Lady, it is said that the Grail is full of life and magic and that the deserving can drink there as he pleases. You have triumphed over the trials, Sovereign of the Moon. Ask and it will be given to you!
Hakuno focused on the ring...
The Regalia... she felt that it was more than a band of gold inlaid with a sapphire, a ruby, and an emerald. Kishinami touched upon complex programs related to Moon Cell.
This "gift" from the photonic supercomputer already gave her a headache. Why had she not received a manual? She had to understand how it worked without help? Even the rewards of her Grail looked like a punishment... Did the knights of Bretonnia realize how lucky they were with their own Grail?
After Isabeau and Hakuno left, King Louen remained in contemplation for a long time in front of the tapestry representing the first king of Bretonnia. Seriously wounded by an Ork chief at the end of the unification war, Gilles le Breton was taken to the Lady's Lake. She healed him, but he could no longer leave the island in the middle of the stretch of water. Yet the Lady told her companions that when the Bretonnnia would be in great danger Gilles the Breton would come back to save them.
Later, during times of great danger, but also to test knights in search of the Grail, a Green Knight appeared.
It was said to be invincible, immune to ordinary weapons, capable of disappearing at a moment to reappear further...
Some said it was Gilles le Breton.
Others said that the Green Knight was the embodiment of the soul of the Bretonnia.
All these powers were... strangely similar to those of the "Servants" Hakuno had mentioned. Now, according to her, only the Grail could invoke them. Moreover, the Servants were the embodiment of the legend of a hero of the past.
Could it be that...
The thought seemed almost blasphemous to him...
Could it be that the Lady invoked the "Servant" Gilles the Breton using her Grail?
Thought even more frightening, Kishinami had told that the Moon Cell had summoned 128 Servants...
The mere presence of the Green Knight was enough to change the course of catastrophic battles. To imagine a hundred such powerful heroes on the battlefield made him feel very small. No army of mortals could face them; even the demon princes would have trouble fighting them.
Could Hakuno really invoke a Servant? Many?
This would radically change the course of the conflict!
He had to make sure that Kishinami became a friend of Bretonnia.
The cult of Slaanesh was present in all the big cities of the Old World.
It was not a city of any importance that had at least a small circle of worshippers who gathered at night to celebrate its orgiastic rites.
Elves, Humans... even the Dwarves could fall, gnawed from the inside. Where Khorne sent armies of Daemons to besiege the cities, where Nurgle poisoned or forcibly mutated mortals, Slaanesh attacked rarely frontal.
He knocked politely at the door and offered glittering gold, beautiful slaves skilled in the arts of the bed, exquisite drugs...
Slaanesh, the Lord of Hedonism, was the most attractive of the gods of Chaos. He never asked for anything in exchange for his gifts. After all, his true reward was to contemplate the abyss of depravity into which his worshippers sank.
Slaanesh was also, after Tzeentch, the most sensitive to magic among the Lords of the Ruin.
The disturbance caused by the Moon Cell intervention could not have escaped him. Something very powerful, of an intrinsically hostile nature, had dared to send one of its agents on a world that was his prey.
A declaration of war!
It was nothing more than a declaration of war and Slaanesh was not the kind to stand by and not answer it. His magic abilities allowed him to discover where the member disturbed his plans for this world and this being has a relationship with the Grail.
The orders of the Lord of Hedonism touched his worshippers in Couronne.
Tonight, there would be one more sacrifice...
An abject smile appeared on Slaanesh's beautiful face. The Prince of Pleasure and Suffering was already anticipating the result of the creativity of his worshippers.
The cult of Slaanesh was - secretly- popular among the nobles of Bretonnia. After all, what was it wrong to free oneself from the rigid doctrine of the cult of the Lady of the Lake? Slaanesh accepted his worshippers with all their imperfections, he forgave them all and rewarded them by offering them literary and poetic inspiration, talent with weapons, love of beautiful ladies.
Like the Elves of Ulthuan, the Bretonnians were refined aesthetes, admirers of art... like them; they were the ideal soil to grow the poisoned fruits of the Cult of Pleasure.
When the head of the Couronne sect received a vision of his god, ecstasy left him speechless for a long time.
His god called after him, offering him a task... a young girl had attracted the attention of his master. He brings together the members of his sect who put on the unholy attire of their worship. As some of them officiated within the king's castle, they were able to enter through hidden doors, secret passages and enter the Hugo Tower.
Hakuno awoke in a burst.
The weeks of trials in the Seraph had given her a strong instinct of survival. Without it, she would have died fighting Archer or Assassin.
She was in danger.
The evidence was circulating in every cell of her body, as in her adrenaline-spiked blood. Her heart beat furiously.
Kishinami stood up and put her shoes on, and listening. The room plunged into darkness was empty. She pulled the curtains and the mixed light of the two moons, Morrslieb - crowned with a chaotic green aura- and Mannslieb - silver and bigger- invaded the room.
She approached the door and turned the key into the lock.
The fear did not diminish. What could she do alone...
Her thought was interrupted by a voice without inflection that startled her. "Threat detected on the Sovereign. Looking for a countermeasure in progress."
A mental message from Moon Cell!
Above her left hand appeared a virtual screen with the Moon Cell logo on it and below it... an hourglass that turned regularly.
Hearing the latch squeak, Hakuno startled. Someone was trying to open the door. The teenager heard muffled voices on the other side of the wood leaf.
Then a first shock sounded.
The attackers had decided to smash the lock-up. Luckily, the tower was part of a defensive structure and the door was made of solid oak panels.
"Solution found: Invocation of a Servant."
"Please wait a minute."
Even with the terror of what was on the other side of the door, the irritation she often felt towards the Moon Cell surfaced again. "Wait", the computer had others like that? She was in mortal danger.
On the holographic screen that continued to float above the Regalia, various organizational charts and tables showed the complex work done by the Moon Cell Automaton to prepare the invocation. The most important tool was a loading bar... fortunately, this one climbed quite quickly.
Hakuno recoiled near the bed and hid on the other side of the obstacle as the blows continued to rain on the door which vibrated more and more. On the floor of the room appeared a circle of magic, as drawn by an invisible hand.
With a violent shock, the door tore off its frame and fell into the room.
Several men appeared. Their appearance was terrifying. They had their heads shaved, their eyes and their mouths tattooed black. They wore colorful skirts. And jewelry...if you could call it that... metal circles around the forehead, wrist protectors and leather bands tied on the arms... all inlaid with steel spikes. Their belts were metal chains and they wore a shoulder pad held in place by another chain. The whole made them look barbaric.
Each of them held in their hands a kind of kris, a dagger with a wavy blade lined with pins.
The men, whom the young Inheritor recognized as worshippers of the gods of chaos... looked around. They were looking for her... and one of them reached out... pointing to her.
By reflex, she attacked:
- Code Cast: Hack!
The man stopped, screaming with pain as yellow arcs formed around him. One neutralized... remained four who threw themselves on her...
They couldn't get to her.
The wind began to blow in a storm as a blue-white light rose from the magic circle. Blue and silver whirlwind... swirling invisible blade... All the worshipers perished in a moment.
In front of Hakuno stood the silhouette of a strangely majestic little woman, wearing heavy armor on a blue dress. She turned to the teenager snuggled up behind the bed. The light of the moons surrounded her, revealing her incredible beauty, her golden hair tied into a braid wrapped in the back of her skull, her emerald-like eyes:
- I ask thou, are thou my Master?
(1) The Bretonnia has no professional army - apart from the knights- the rest of the fighters are either levers or militias.
(2) For those who do not understand it, the "Warhammer" which gives its name to the license is Ghal Maraz, the hammer of Sigmar. After all, the year 0 of the Old World calendar is the foundation of the Empire by Sigmar.
(3) A wave of living destruction formed by the gathering of several tribes of Orks and Goblins under one charismatic leader. A "Waaaagh!" is one of the worst things you can see in Warhammer's world.
(4) Oh, my faithful she-readers, if ever the idea comes to you to complain about women's rights... Put it in perspective! In the Middle Ages, you would already be married, with three or four children hanging on your dress while your back would be broken by pulling your husband's plow. Broken by hard work and repetitive pregnancies, you would have died within thirty years. Believe me, women's rights have come a long way...