Next chapter's up! I find that I need to get a bit better at writing, but then again, practice makes perfect. I don't plan to stop writing this anytime soon, so while I have a good idea on what to write, I find myself unsatisfied with the actual writing itself. If you have any suggestions on anything I can improve, feel free to let me know!
Ivolethe walked down the streets of Fuyuki in awe. To be honest, it was the most she could do to not go around gaping at the sights like a fish.
"To think humans could still build things of this scale even without the aid of magic. The more you know, huh." And her admiration was genuine, while she could easily imagine the construction of things like houses, how the people here managed to build those skyscrapers was something beyond her comprehension. Especially so with all this glass and metal and flowing stone. She suspected the last one had a lot to do with it though.
Well, she didn't know how Lyndell was built either, but that was different. The humans of this era were comparatively feeble, and to imagine they could still do so much… Well, she wasn't going to be underestimating the people here anytime soon.
As someone who got overwhelmed by a mangy dog back when she started out, she had learnt the hard way that a healthy dose of caution would serve her well in any situation.
The architecture also served to distract her from her worries.
Just a few moments ago, she had realized that she didn't require a rebirth monument to perform spirit summoning. She didn't know if this 'grail' was performing the function of the monument for her, or if it was just a property of the world itself that allowed it, but she was giddy at the thought of being able to call upon the spirits whenever she felt like it.
So she walked into an empty alley out of public view and summoned the war hawk for reconnaissance. At first, everything was fine. She drew upon her internal well of power and rang the spirit calling bell. She paid the flat cost of the initial materialization from her own focus pool and back home, that would have been enough for the spirit to stick around and do its job.
Her eyes met with that of the hawk who let out shrill screech, and prepared to take off into the sky. It was at this point however, that things started to go sideways. A feeling of conflict started to scratch at the back of her mind. It was as if her magic was struggling to hold onto something. After a few long moments, Ivolethe managed to place why the sensation felt so familiar yet different.
It appeared that she had the displeasure of encountering whatever equivalent this world had of the Greater Will. She had vaguely felt it snooping around earlier when she used the Catch flame incantation, but she wasn't really sure what it was that tried to obstruct the use of her incantations. It was really obvious now though, when she tried to connect the spirit summoning bell with the land.
She was not unfamiliar with omnipresent beings causing trouble for her, what with all the Outer Gods deciding to poke their fingers into mortal affairs so often. She had felt the influence of both the Greater Will and other things like the Formless mother before. But what really surprised her here was the source. While the Greater Will and the other outer gods in the Lands Between existed far away in the distant cosmos, whatever divine spirit running the business here was doing it from within. It was almost as if the very world itself was alive, and apparently, it didn't like magic. Too bad for it however, that activating a Great rune prevented her abilities from degrading too much. Miquella's needle might also do the job but she was reluctant to touch the damn thing after the absolute mess the innocent looking needle had landed her in.
She was startled when she found out how much the 'World' affected the spirit summons though. While those only required magic from herself as the source, a connection to the land was usually necessary to anchor them to the material world. But since the 'world' was such a bad sport, it decided to eat away at the magic animating the war-hawk instead. The war-hawk started to disintegrate slowly and she had to actively burn through her magic and focus to maintain it.
This had Ivolethe unsummoning her war-hawk to conserve what amount of energy she had left. It was important to conserve her focus pool, since she apparently didn't have a 'master' to supply magical energy to her.
This entire situation was troublesome, especially since the ability to actively regenerate what magical energy she had while resting was one of the few things that made quite a few of her abilities viable to use. She couldn't imagine what having a permanently limited source of magic was going to be like and she resolved to not find out. Finding a 'master' was now much higher on her list of priorities.
As for summoning, it seemed that she had to look for a place that produced magic in excess and hook the summoning bell onto that for upkeep if she ever wanted to use it feasibly. Such places were likely to be rare in this world though. She could tell, with how the magic in the air was so thin.
"Ugh." She groaned. She really didn't want to do this, but she needed to confirm if she still had the option to summon… her. "Of course this stupid world would make me resort to summoning the idiot." Ivolethe mumbled.
She then activated her rune, opening up her inventory. After rooting through her spirit ash collection she finally found a specific name. Ivolethe was reluctant to proceed but she did need some additional help to scout for threats in such an unfamiliar environment. It would also be a good idea to check whether summoning the Mimic was even a viable option in the first place.
She sighed, and with a distortion, she had the ashes in her possession swapped out. She also remembered to wear the 'Furled finger's trick mirror' talisman. While the item was meant to make a phantom look human, it would also work for the mimic if it materialized while wearing it. It would not do for her would-be companion to stand out too much.
Ringing the bell, she felt an excruciating pain biting through her body instead of the familiar drain of her focus. Blood flowed from her palm as it was drained into the bell and towards the ashes. The crimson liquid then transmuted midair into an ethereal liquid metal, which landed in the alleyway with a crash. The blob of liquid metal stilled for a moment, before morphing and twisting until it became humanoid. Then it stood up on two feet, its form gaining clarity and color until what stood before her was a perfect imitation of herself.
Being the ashes of a Mimic tear of the Eternal City, it imitated everything. "Yo boss, who do you want me to beat up?" Well…nearly everything. The mimic tear usually copied whatever living being was closest to it. However, if it was summoned while supplemented with a sacrifice of her own vitality, it would transform into a near-perfect copy of herself with all her memory and skills intact. She was evidently still an entirely different entity though, so while she fought like her and could remember the same things she did, the Mimic tear could never imitate Ivolethe's own will and soul. So the Mimic did her best to improvise and adopted a personality from… somewhere. Ivolethe didn't know where the damn idiot got the idea that behaving like a battle hungry maniac was an ideal representation of her personality, but that was something Ivolethe had to deal with for now.
"You know what I summoned you for, Mimic, you have my memories. Stop looking for excuses to pick a fight." The mimic pouted and for Ivolethe, seeing her own face look so much like a petulant child was… uncanny. But it mostly served to annoy her like nothing else.
She wasn't so whiny dammit!
The mimic looked pitiful and turned her pleading eyes towards the annoyed woman. Unfortunately, the mimic wore her own face so it only served to annoy the woman further. Ivolethe just stared unimpressed at the petulant monstrosity of magic wearing her appearance. "Yeah, I'm not buying it."
The mimic closed her eyes and scratched her head. She then sighed. "Yeah sure boss, I got yer back. I'll play along for now but you owe me a good fight later sometime. 'kay?" The mimic gazed at the talisman curiously. "While this thing is useful we still look identical, I think It'll just draw more attention." She stated.
"True" I said. "But it's not obviously supernatural. While most of the things the grail dumped in my head was bland information, one of the few things it was adamant about was maintaining the 'secrecy of magic' thing they have going on here. As you can tell from the context, knowledge of magic is rare here and the ones that know of it apparently want it to stay that way." The mimic nodded. Then groaned. "Great, if magic is limited, the mages we do meet are most likely gonna be arrogant elitist asses aren't they?" Ivolethe froze, and then groaned as well. Normal mages were already annoying to deal with, entitled ones were just going to be insufferable. She just knew things were going to get out of hand the moment she met one. While her luck was generally something to be envied, her luck with people usually wasn't.
She let out a sigh of exasperation. "We'll deal with that when we actually get to meet one. Anyways, how do you feel, are you going to disappear on me anytime soon? Do you feel like you're disintegrating?"
The mimic laughed. "Do I look like I'm fadin' away, boss?. We can have a quick spar yeah? Test how solid I am?"
Ivolethe raised an eyebrow.
"Spoilsport." The mimic looked away, grumbling. "Hmm. Sort of I guess?" She looked unsure. "Like, I'm stable right now since I have my own internal focus pool, using your vitality to summon me lets me have something akin to my own body but I'm still a spirit yeah? I need magic to remain animated here, so it's slowly draining the magic in my focus pool instead of yours. After that runs out, I'll probably start draining you instead like the others." She shrugged.
Ivolethe sighed. "How many Cerulean flasks do you have?" she asked.
The mimic checked her pouch. "Four" she replied.
"Those replenish our entire focus pool right? How long do you think you can last before you need to drink one?" At that, the mimic started counting her fingers.
"Uh.. I think I'll last half an hour without using any magic. I think casting any spells or incantations will drain it faster, well, faster than normal. So I think I can last around two and a half hours if I stick to the physical stuff."
Ivolethe nodded, she was about to go into more details on the consumable items in her possession when they were suddenly interrupted.
"Why hello there! Are you new to Fuyuki, miss? The two of you look lost, and It's not very safe getting lost in this part of town so late at night." A trio of ruffians somehow crept up behind the two of them without their notice. Ivolethe was startled. Then again, despite their obvious inclination, the lack of a weapon and any level of magical presence probably had her subconsciously not consider them enough of a threat to notice. That was embarrassing, and potentially lethal. Ivolethe resolved to improve on her situational awareness.
The thug standing at the front, an odd man wearing darkened spectacles in the middle of the night, continued. "It would be a simple matter for us fine men to lead you to somewhere 'safer', yes? We just need some adequate compensation! Well that bell looks really expensive, genuine silver too I believe. I would need to check and I wonder where you got it from? I'm sure you would be willing to part with it and answer some questions in exchange for our service, yes?." The man brought his hands together and leaned forward in expectation.
Ivolethe looked at the man in utter bewilderment. True, she had blended in with the local populace after 'borrowing' a set of the local attire but she had made no attempt at hiding her presence, which was more than enough to set the local wildlife running. Did these men have no survival instincts?
"Hey boss." The mimic called. "We don't have any of the local currency, right?" Ivolethe nodded, curious as to where the Mimic was going with the question.
"Well, isn't it so nice that these honest people offered to donate their ill-earned money for us to use?" She finished. Ivolethe's mind caught up, and a nasty grin spread across her face.
"Why yes, it is very kind of them to do so. Be gentle will you, they're awfully fragile."
"Of course, boss. Don't worry, I won't hurt them. Much."
It was at that moment that the three ruffians understood that they made a crucial miscalculation.
They weren't the ones making a lucky break tonight.
-x-
It took an hour to sniff out these 'Leylines' by tracking the mana density and so far, the two of them found three locations. The first was the church, and just before she could hunker down, the grail unhelpfully saw it fit to inform her that the place was considered a neutral ground by the participants of the 'holy grail war'.
Having been dragged into a war was bad enough, but having all the participants coming down on her for something so avoidable was not a desirable outcome. And that was not even considering that she had no idea what the 'Grail' even was, other than being some sort of 'omnipotent wish granting device' which sounded suspicious, and very much like a trap. She had yet to know what her 'competitors' were capable of, so either way, going in without a plan was a bad idea. Thankfully they managed to get out of the area before anything could notice them.
The second location she discovered was a temple located atop a mountain. It seemed ideal, until the mimic ran right into the anti-spirit wards put up around the entire perimeter. While watching the mimic jump out of the forest like she caught on fire was amusing, going there was counterproductive to their purposes. She did suppose that the actual temple itself was free of these wards but she had to take some time and scout the location thoroughly before she did anything there. It seemed exactly like the sort of place where a stupidly powerful monster would settle down in. The path leading up into the temple also looked perfect for an ambush, and she would be damned if she walked right into another one without properly preparing for it!
The third was somehow obscured with some sort of boundary field, and the most she could figure out from observing it was that it was some sort of residence. Well, figures. It was an obvious choice for a family of mages to settle down in if the option was actually available to them. She decided not to test the boundary field either. While she was familiar with the fog walls back home, the fields here were less direct and far more hostile and insidious. There was also an intense presence in the direction that let her know that a 'Servant' was in there. So it was a competitor then, which made things complicated. While she was all for denying assets to an enemy, she really didn't want to invade some random person's home unprovoked and she was in no position to actively start hostilities.
She would obviously be in for quite a fight too if the overwhelming presence was any indication. Honestly it reminded her of a demigod, one of Malenia's calibre as well: one that was more god than mortal. The implications were… not good. She wasn't ready for a fight like that yet, not with her magic being in the state it was in right now.
So, she and the mimic made a hasty retreat before the enemy Servant could notice them.
Finally, they ran into the final leyline they managed to pick up, which was the Fuyuki city Civic Centre. This place was far more accessible and was also relatively easy to break in. All they had to do was move around the sight of the 'cameras' and they were free to use the building for their needs. It was a public building though, so staying would be an issue in the morning. There might also be problems with how easily discoverable they were if an opponent were to stumble into the place.
The two of them ended up stopping in the auditorium. The seats were sufficient enough for them to relax in and there was adequate space for them to take stock of their situation.
It would be enough for the two of them to stay the night.
"Hey mimic, are you stable now?" Ivolethe asked.
"Yeah." The doppelganger answered. "Feels strange, drawing magic from the outside like this but I can manage."
Ivolethe nodded. "I see, well then, we should see if any of our other abilities have been affected and if so, to what degree." The mimic nodded in agreement.
"We also have to take some time and go through the information the grail gave us to better understand our situation. The war hasn't officially begun yet since I've yet to sense or hear about any hostilities but we don't have a proper method to gather information set up either, so we can't be sure. We should also go to the nearest public library in the morning, when the other 'Servants' won't make any blatantly obvious moves in a public area."
"Mhm" The mimic agreed, a bit distracted.
"Well, then, I'm going to take a light nap, you'll do the first watch?"
"Mhm." Came the reply.
Ivolthe shrugged and relaxed into the cushioned seating. "Whoever came up with these is a genius. Why didn't we have these back home?" she muttered.
"Hey boss?" The mimic called out.
"Yeah?" Ivolethe tilted her head to get a better view of the mimic. The tone of the mimic's voice made her curious.
"What's this PS thing? It sounds cool and I want one."
Ivolethe went through the information the grail supplied.
"Huh." she said. "Add that to the list." She paused. "Pizzas too."
"Hey boss?" The mimic called out again.
"Yeah?" Ivolethe asked.
"We need to check out the mall too, and the arcade, and the shooting range-" The mimic cut herself off. Ivolethe took the time to go through more of the information the grail gave on the 'modern era'.
"Hey boss?" The mimic called, her voice frustrated this time.
"Yeah?" she replied, tired.
"This is going to be a long night, isn't it?" The voice was injected with all the impatience of a bored and frustrated child. Ivolethe could understand, given the juicy information she received.
"Yeah…" She sighed, exasperated. "This is going to be a long night for sure…"