"Er, hello." The homunculi of the Seventh Hall, due to being located in the lower sections of Chaldea, did not see many casual visitors, let alone an ever-impetuous Tamamo Cat who had been nearby after a self-decided tour of the nearby chicken coops. Though the animals were useful for, among other things, 'recycling' plant matter into eggs, Cat was more interested in their almost diorama-like setup.

Of course, there was no normal outside area for the chickens to run about as was normal in the Four Houses' other areas; thus, a large hall-sized area was used to house several small structures for the birds (the actual coops) which sat scattered about a recreation of the outdoor portion of where the Einzbern Estate's chickens were kept. A few plants from the original area had been brought in and by now had multiplied somewhat to provide an appropriate-looking quantity of greenery. Of course, whether they realized it or not, the chickens were mostly finding food scattered for them by their homunculi caretakers, rather than actually participating in a balanced ecosystem.

Unsurprisingly, the few roosters kept there had found territories conveniently matching their number - one to each structure - and would, oddly enough, likely gang up on any normal cat that had somehow gotten into the area. However, they knew enough to reconsider when Cat came in, ignoring the surprised attempts of the area's caretakers to stop her and thus in a single moment scattering the flocks near the door. In a very short while, all the chickens had retreated to their safe nesting places.

In contrast, though they clearly knew in advance from their fellows following Cat, the inhabitants of the Seventh Hall did not pay much mind to the Servant bouncing into their home. Or for ones more familiar with them, this apparent lack of response was a giveaway that they had, in fact, been expecting her. Indeed, it was not just individual homunculi following or identifying a Servant for everyone in the System, but even the System itself that could track such high-level signatures as a matter of course.

Much like how one cannot miss bonfires on a flat plain in pitch black, items like the Grail System, blade generators and Servants were obvious to 'see' to anyone linked in. The first two by themselves would be useful landmarks for three-dimensional navigation for those not already familiar with the structure of Chaldea as recorded in its System.

"Would you like to play a game?" Theia asked, unsure what exactly Tamamo Cat was looking for. Indeed, her first guess was that it would be the herb gardens which the on-shift cook had mentioned in passing, but it turned out that Cat was not interested after being informed that mundane herbs did not cook well when using the Servant food ingredients.

"Waa~n. Thermonuclear War."

"Uh, who exactly is attacking us with nuclear weapons?" one of Theia's group asked the Berserker. "That's not really a normal set up..."

"What do you mean?" Theia asked him. "The database names this scenario Steel Rain."

"I see. That's an odd name for it," was the initially surprised then thoughtful reply. "It's still not a normal one though."

This was not a mystery to Theia though, since she was a veteran of the Founding Conflict. "It was initially called Iron Phalanx, but the name was changed for a better more obfuscation, I guess."

"Spears." Cat commented to neither one of them.

"It's more about the shields really... uh what now?" They were surprised when the Servant abruptly turned and dashed out the way they had just entered the hall. "Er, wait up?!"

In the corridor just outside, a couple of cats who had been enjoying some snacks provided for them quickly made themselves scarce as Tamamo Cat passed by them, only to stop in front of another small furry member of Chaldea who was calmly patrolling the area.

"The Wild Fox, Tamamo Cat ! Nice to meet you, my fellow !" the Servant introduced herself to the Phantasmal Beast, Fou, with an enthusiastic air of formality.

"Fou." (Special Translation: Yes, I've heard about you. Proceed.)

And that was the overt extent of their exchange. Fou returned to his patrol and Tamamo Cat watched him leave without any comment. A little down the corridor, Fou's more mundane fellows returned to their meal. From the top high-security areas to the middle ones with outside access to the greater volume of Chaldea in the lower areas, cats roamed fairly freely, encouraged by the homunculi in their Halls nearby to turn the facility into a deathtrap for any rodents that might get in from the forests just 'outside' which helped conceal Chaldea's only entrance.

"Hmm, was that Fou? He's looking magically fluffy again, isn't he?" Theia commented as her group caught up Tamamo Cat in time to see Fou's back disappearing down a side hallway.

"Well that's a good sign," her companion agreed. Although friendly with the homuncului and more so with Chaldea's Masters and Servants, giving boosts to the latter whenever he had accumulated enough magical energy from eating the Servants' food, Fou did not seem to like the humans nearly as much with the notable exception of Dr. Romani and the two children Iri and Matthew. Who, as noticed by the Masters, could be considered the only non-magi in the Organization.

"Too bad we don't have a Phantasmal Zoologist who could give us a clue what kind of beast Fou is," another pointed out. "Even if it was as simple as being a phantasmal cat, Fou clearly doesn't think of the other cats as his kin."

"Don't bother looking for a mate, woof." Cat had apparently fulfilled her purpose for the visit and started on her way back to the upper levels.

"Well, they'd be on the Reverse Side of the World anyway, I think." Despite not having a fearsome energy signature like the Servants, Fou's ability to eat their food and even use what was presumably some sort of Skill to strengthen them meant he was no trifling entity.

Many homunculi had, of course, heard of Kojirou's long-run attempts to cut down a swallow in flight - and equally the speculation among themselves that no mundane bird could possibly require anything like the Saber's (Tsubame Gaeshi) to kill. Because, of course, a standard domestic cat which might play daily with humans but was not driven to hunt multiple times a day just to survive, could still catch birds every now and then. Including ones with a difficulty-to-kill similar to swallows.

"Since the Event was in Japan, they better have appropriate ingredients," Tamamo Cat made her destination clear to those following her: the Servant-side kitchen. It would seem that this particular beast had decided to take over cooking. Or at least whenever she felt like getting in to do it.

"Oh my, what a cute... squirrel?" Elizabeth had been thinking about starting an idol group ever since her experience with the surprise coming-of-age duet concert. The fact that the Nero Claudius who had been the other party then wasn't from this particular Chaldea meant that she would have to start from number two, but that suited her just fine. -Just need to remember to keep a slot for that girl.-

Fou turned to look at the Servant as though considering. "Fou?" (Special Translation: I guess you're worth considering.)

His fur seemed to blow in a wind that didn't exist in the Chaldea corridor the two had been about to pass one another in. In Elizabeth's eyes, the glitter of small magical energy motes practically leaking from the beast's body made it look... like the perfect idol mascot !

"Hello there, are you perhaps looking for a cheerful young girl to make a contract with? Or maybe a lively maiden who can sing you a popular song? Huh?" She stooped down as Fou approached and extended a paw with a steady gaze that brooked no flights of fancy. "Fou, fou... fou." (ST: As a dragon-type, you'd make a great combo with Magi-Mari but whatever...)

"Haha, how clever of you." The Lancer reached out and shook Fou's paw. As Servant and beast made contact, though, a sudden tingle spread over Elizabeth almost as though Fou had discharged an electric shock into her body. Unsure if perhaps she had read the mysterious animal incorrectly, causing it to behave aggressively, she quickly pulled away.

Someone came running up as Fou simply turned and left, his gait almost looking like the beast was shrugging on his way elsewhere. The newcomer helped Elizabeth to her feet, in which time the Servant recognized her as yet another one of Chaldea's many homunculi residents. From her thus week-long stay, she had already figured out that they were quite well-acquainted with Servants, though any casual interaction with them only looked like it on the surface level.

"Did Fou give you one of his boosts?" the girl homunculi asked Elizabeth.

"I don't feel very different," the Servant replied simply. Certainly -something- had happened, and it didn't feel like she had been attacked. Perhaps it was on a level that needed da Vinci's equipment or Scathach's experience to suss out.

"You shouldn't," was the encouraging reply. "Fou charges up pretty passively, so a single boost wouldn't be much on a Servant level. But it's something, you know?"

l

(My Room)

"This is terrible," Gudao said after his female counterpart relayed the information about Merlin to him. "Doubly so since you think the Grail wouldn't casually let a Servant, even if she was a Ruler, just read details up to Grand Servant level. It does answer how the mastermind is strong enough to do such a massive systematic attack, though."

"I wouldn't have expected there to be that many heavy hitters besides Zelretch, but at least this Magus of Flowers is presumably on our side?" Gudako tried to sound positive about the results of the search. "Also, while he was never a human, we do share the goal of preserving humanity in at least some viable form."

"Ah, he's somewhere outside the World so... really as long as a few branches survive, I doubt he's likely to care too much about how many were lost," he tried to sound unaffected, but the almost deliberately positioned and tantalizing nature of the records Sasaku found linked to Merlin were telling just from their accessibility. And frightening. "Remember that we have good reasons to think there's very likely some inevitable mana-based disaster on the horizon, even if we survive the current situation. As to these Evils of Humanity, it seems a bit odd that something like that is handled by 'ghost' liners and homunculi rather than humans."

"Figure between the two of us there's one human worth of Masters, that's gotta count for something." Gudako kept to herself the thought that perhaps it was specifically non-humans that had a better matchup, given that Chaldea had to some extent always been manipulated even before its existence.

"Hmph, wouldn't expect any thanks for saving their bacon," he allowed. "I would be more optimistic about our situation were we able to reliably communicate with those other Chaldeas. Or, like, maneuver rather than just being carried along in Void Space. Hmm, does it have void currents or void winds? A void sail or maybe something like a rocket engine we can run though the Separation Order off magical energy."

"da Vinci is of the opinion that we'd gain most in general from focusing on our detection equipment. Given how detecting, identifying and remotely studying Detection Events is very much exactly what allows Rayshifting to resolve them, more accuracy, speed and range in that department actually does more than adjusting our motion to go... where exactly?"

"If enough of us linked up, that could be a decent alternative victory condition, you know..." Gudao shook his head at Gudako's skeptical expression. "Future humanity seems to have this thing about space; somehow the planet always screws them over. Void space isn't all that different, Chaldea has the same square-cube law (border area of Separation Order: volume of space in Chaldea) as spaceships, except we run off magical energy which is generated on the 'cube' side. Alright, back on topic. While you were doing that, I got confirmation from da Vinci about something a bit less speculative: it's quite certain that the Friend Point summoning cannot on its own summon anything at the level of a Servant, even a really weak one. Unfortunately."

"Agesipolis has to thank the leftover magical energy from the two previous Saint Quartz-based summonings?" Gudako remembered the initial readings which suggested that most of the ambient energy had been used up in the event.

"Mhm. Also, all our other runs of Friend Point summons produce mundane things: ingredients, flowers, stuffed animals, random blocks of wood or chunks of scrap metal, toys, bolts of cloth and so on. There's additionally an interesting point from the logs of Grail System automatic monitoring; there were no Servant-level records called up around the time Agesipolis came though, but instead something much smaller was transferred to the Summoning Room. We asked around, but Georgios, Jeanne and Martha all find an odd lack of detail when they use their Skills on Agesipolis. Apparently he has a very truncated record, might be a wraith like Saber."

"It was too much to hope we might have an easier way to call up Servants," Gudako sighed. "Weak or not, having more points of conceptual coverage on the cheap... anyway we should keep trying the Friend Point method every time after we use Saint Quartz, at least."

"Unfortunately, that resource runs out, it's why we hadn't tried after the following two Quartz summons. Ruby said she had run dry during the trials. Silly as it sounds, we need to harvest more friendship or something."

(Training Grounds)

"I see what you mean," Scathach concluded after a moment of thought. "It's an inconvenient weapon set for our sorts of small-scale engagements."

"Unfortunately," Agesipolis agreed, not happily. "I suppose that despite all those vase images of heroic duels, humans aren't sufficiently fooled that this is somehow excellent for the one-on-one."

"It might have been different were you a conventional Lancer." Scathach didn't have the fullest range of examples to compare the new Shielder with. "As seen by your ability to use that shield so flexibly. Uh what?"

Tamamo Cat abruptly made her presence known, not that she was trying to be stealthy despite having an amazingly low sound profile (bell being completely silent on her, unlike anyone else). However, she simply stared at Agesipolis in confusion for a bit, apparently having expected to find someone else there.

"Can I help you?" the other Servant asked quizzically.

"Where's your mistress?"

"I don't know. Ask a homunculus."

Cat simply left.

"What was that all about?" Scathach asked, sensing that something critical had been exchanged between the other two right in front of her.

l

(One of the "Recyclers")

"You really like the flowers, huh?" Euryale asked her by now established fighting partner as the two sat in a large hall-sized garden area. According to its operators, the place functioned as a composting facility - this meant that they regularly brought in Chaldea's organic waste and systematically plowed up sections to bury said material. A number of the flowers in evidence were from various plants used in the Einzbern composting area, which included several selected species of weeds. A few goats browsed lazily though the growth, incidentally providing from it a trickle supply of milk. After several failed attempts on the smaller Servant's fluttery clothes and shiny jewelry, they had learned that it was entirely futile since those items proved indestructible to their best efforts.

"They live in the open... and grow back even when eaten," Asterios replied briefly. The general hardiness of various weed types meant that many a gardener found in them a tiresome and tireless foe. But to the goats, they made excellent breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. And snacks.

The Einzbern Estate deliberately left some more visible areas overgrown, avoiding large-scale clearing actions that might give away their various constructions. As a result, any number of various plants found themselves allowed to grow all around as a sort of natural camouflage. A small number of goats, initially procured to provide a modest stream of animals for 'special uses' found there an excellent and varied diet that in turn caused them to multiply.

"We're indoors though, and they're planted back by the homunculi," the other responded, though she understood at least the first half. While Chaldea had wide corridors to ease movement of equipment, Asterios was like a wide-load vehicle forcing every one else to make do with only half a lane or even divert around whenever he traveled though. Rooms in Chaldea were neither small nor with low ceilings, however they could not but be cramped for a Servant as large as he was. As a result, he had taken to spending more of his time here, where the goats eventually put his horns and long hair together with his tendency to sit among the flowers, and probably concluded that the Servant must be a particularly large loner of a goat.

"No, they grow back," he insisted, having seen that the riot of vegetation around them was generally unregulated, unless the goats counted. Unlike the odd rainbow-lit sections dedicated to farming, these areas were simply natural processors that turned waste into fertilizer. Try as they might, no number of weeds could long 'lock up' nutrients within them before being eaten by goats, returning it all to the ground for 'harvesting'. They did, however, help allow the place to very efficiently take in and break down whatever came in.

"... by the way, I heard that the new Berserker wants to have a match with you after she gains a few power levels," Euryale added conversationally. Truth be told, Asterios did not yet have well-practiced combat instincts, and his great Strength and indeed size made casual sparring a very tricky affair.

"That's odd," Chaldea's second Berserker (after Kiyohime) shrugged. "That Cat came by a while before you."

"And?"

"She wanted to cook goat for the Masters. But not allowed."

l

Notes:

Yes, I've sort of implied that even (FGO Friend Point only) Servants like Asterios and welfares like Halloween Elizabeth are Quartz summons. My roster has Lancer Liz and her welfares though, so I'm sorta fudging it to keep to the 'no duplicates' thing established as a rule for branches related to Another Aria.