In a Deepest-Placed Shrine

Artoria Pendragon stretched slowly. She was still in a half-sleep, but the years of war had deeply engraved in her the necessities of survival. The King of Britain opened her eyes and rose gently, aware that she was in danger. At first glance, the ruins that surrounded her awakened no memory.
Yes, that's true. She left Wind-Keep the day after the battle, after dark. Demoralized by their defeat, the Redguards warriors did not lead a most vigilant guard and Saber could easily sneak between their lines.
Accompanied by Cù Chulainn, she had walked all night. After a few hours of rest, the two reincarnated Servants had resumed their march towards the ancient Direnni's city which saber had discovered during her journey.

Thanks to the prophecy of the Elders Scroll, Artoria and Cù knew that a sacrifice was necessary for the incarnation of Angra Mainyu and that the said sacrifice was to take place in a "buried temple". Of course, this kind of ceremony could only succeed if the immolated individual had a sufficient "value". In ritual magic this value was symbolic. Without getting into complicated details, in this case, this sacrifice had to be one of the former Servants or one of the ex-Masters of the Fifth Grail War, more precisely, one of those who opposed the reincarnation of All the World's Evils in Tamriel.
Artoria rose slowly, listening to rumors of discussion and the sounds of distant steps. Her sixth sense did not react, so she was not in immediate danger.

The young woman was simply dressed in a blue dress with puffy epaulets, decorated with a few cladding of golden fabric. Strands of grass clung to the garment, and her fine hair, as if powdered with gold dust, was in disorder, the braid tied at the back of her head was partly undone.

Artoria frowned, looking around.

She was sheltered in a kind of dig trench. A section of wall damaged by the passage of time rose at her sides, picks, shovels, and wicker baskets still filled with earth were abandoned here or there. Now awake, the King of the Knights remembered arriving here with Cù Chulainn, the night before. They hid here, she took the first watch. By the middle of the night, she had awakened Lancer and had fallen asleep under his protection.

Except the former Servant didn't wake her up and he disappeared!

Saber briefly closed her eyes and her lips squeezed in a hard fold. She was too well-bred to spit out a salvo of swearing like the ones Kay loved... but the former Servant thought them very strongly.

The High Priest of Angra Mainyu was none other than Kirei Kotomine and their "old friend" had captured Bazett Fraga MacRemitz... the Master who had summoned Cù Chulainn at the beginning of the Grail War... and whom Kirei had betrayed to steal her Command Seals... and Lancer.
Yesterday, Artoria had to argue with Lancer so that he would agree to stop for the night. He was very worried about Bazett... Of course, she could understand that. But that he took advantage of her sleep to try something stupid, it was beyond her. Why did she always have to team up with impulsive people like the son of the god Lugh... or Shirou?

Artoria breathed a disillusioned sigh and concentrated for a brief moment. From the feet to the throat, she found herself enveloped in a bluish light that took a trapezoidal form. The next moment in a metallic slam the particles of Prana evaporated. She was now dressed in strange armor composed of a breastplate, gauntlets, metal boots, and especially a skirt formed of three metal slats.

She seemed to be holding something in her hand, but nothing was visible, except a blue light that was filtering through Excalibur's air sheath at times.

Even her hair was now well done.

"Bravo for the sound and light! If you want, you can do even less discreet and make even more noise, Saber, I suggest you fire fireworks next time."

By reflex, Artoria turned swiftly, her eyes reduced to two thin slits, clutching the Winds King's Sword... but she had already recognized the mocking voice.

Crouching at the top of a tumbled wall, his red spear resting on his neck, Cù Chulainn looked at her more like a cat eats the cream that always irritated her.

"Lancer... where have you been?"

"Gone to take a look ahead."

Artoria was already furious, but the King of the Knights made an effort to contain her anger:

"You should have woken me up and warned me."

The Servant's smile was accentuated:

"Asleep, you were so adorable that I didn't have the heart to wake you up. I wonder what all the admirers of the 'Great King Arthur, paragon of chivalry' would think if they were presented with a picture of you asleep... I bet they would collapse upside down with big pink hearts instead of eyes and blood coming out of nostrils. Unfortunately, we won't be able to verify I don't have a camera."

He had said this with the tone of someone who had just lost the possibility of making a fortune by setting up a workshop for reproducing compromising photos...

That's why Artoria could NEVER get along with Cù!

After a brief (but fervent) prayer to the gods of Tamriel that the photograph may never be discovered on Nirn, Saber clenched her fists, her face turning red from shame and embarrassment:

"Lancer, looking at a sleeping girl's face is very rude!"

What made the Irish hero laugh:

"And entering a blacksmith's home after killing his dog is a sign of excellent education? (1)

Artoria decided not to insist on the bad manners of the former Servant... gifted tactician, she knew how to recognize a losing battle.

"Lancer, tell me about your recon."

Cù Chulainn nodded. The day before, they had taken advantage of the dark hours to pass the sentries which were at the edge of the excavation site. They were now inside the ruins of the ancient Direnni's city. But other guards were deployed around two points of the ruins. Lancer had not pushed his reconnaissance any further, preferring to join Saber to inform her of his finding.

Artoria nodded:

"All right, show me what you...

But, what she was about to say was muffled by a thunderous roar, a roar rising from her stomach.
Gathering together the scattered debris of her dignity, Saber continued:

"I think it's wiser to eat something before we leave. Hunger is the enemy."

Lancer was laughing openly at her:

"Oh yes, with such a powerful enemy, we must not let it gain in strength."

Saber was very proud when she managed to suppress the (not very chivalrous) desire to strangle Lancer, bury him under a few stones, and claim to have never met him...

At present, the daylight was full, although the day star manifested itself only by a pale spot filtered by the heavy grey clouds. It was raining, a thin, powerless shower that soaked the ground, turning it into brown-red mud.

This drizzle enveloped everything, giving a sinister air to the ruins of the ancient city. It was very large, and only a small part of it had been uncovered. Around Artoria stood the remains of buildings with thick walls, the foundations, barely reaching her knees. These were several large complexes with clear interior divisions, built around inner courtyards.

These must have been palaces, the numerous courtyards, shops, and vast halls were invariably reminiscent of feudal organization with a lord surrounded by his family, his servants, and his guards.

As an experienced tactician, King Arthur could not escape the idea that the very thickness of their walls also gave them the role of a fortress. These were the only constructions of this immense city to have left vestiges. The rest had to be made up of wooden blocks populated by poor people. Their abodes had obviously not resisted the passage of time.

The society of the time was divided into two clearly separated classes. Not hard to understand that the bulk of the population was a mixture of slaves and small craftsmen. They maintained the walls, cultivated the land, and raised the palaces of the aristocracy. This wealthy minority was to possess most of the wealth but live in the haunting of revolts.

Attentive, Saber and Lancer looked around, looking for clues as to what they were looking for. The first time Artoria came, the site was teeming with slaves who evacuated the land. They were now safe at Aphren's Hold. Their torturers had also disappeared with them. This allowed Saber and Lancer to walk through the ruins without really hiding.

Everywhere, there were signs of their interrupted work: tools abandoned, baskets still half full of rubble. The slaves had freed piles of pottery away from the fortified palaces. Probably household waste buried at the time. Some ceramics were in good enough condition to be recognizable: jars with wide openings and curved bottoms that were used to cook the food but especially pots with tripods still very used for this same use. Next to each manor house, there was another pit... with animal bones.
It had taken centuries to accumulate as many used dishes or to stack that amount of burned bones.
Then after this long period, all of a sudden, this vast city was abandoned. Artoria knew enough about High-Rock's history to remember how the Direnni Hegemony ended. The Direnni were a small group of High Elves. Coming from the Autumn Archipelago, they settled around the Illiac Bay. For a time, they had constituted an immense kingdom then... they faced the First Empire of Cyrodiil: the Alessian Order. These religious fanatics hated magic, the Elves, and considered that knowledge should be reserved for the nobility, a serf knowing how to read was condemned to death at the time! How could they have tolerated the existence of Direnni, elves, magic, and value so much knowledge?
There was war, a war won by the Direnni... but which cost them dearly. They were few in number and never recovered from the losses they had had to consent to win the battle of Glenumbria.

Lancer approached an abandoned trench. In the middle of two bun-orange layers typical of the site's land, there was a black line. He waved to Artoria. The blue knight checked that there were no patrols nearby, and then took the risk of jumping into the pit. She observed more closely the dark trace... of charcoal! As she crumbled it under her fingers, a tarnished elven metal object fell from the charred stratum. Saber picks it up and observed it from several angles. No doubt, it was an arrowhead!
A fire that devastated a city could be an accident. The ravage by fire and arrows was only encountered during a war.

The satisfaction of these discoveries lasted only a moment. It did not matter what had destroyed the city. They had to find Bazett. After leaving the pit, Artoria Pendragon looked around and tried to understand how the excavations were organized.

Kirei Kotomine must have given orders to look for something in particular. Evidently, the excavations were concentrated on two specific points of the immense perimeter.

First, there was a couple of stone pillars that had been cleared. They were now at the bottom of a wide bowl surrounded by ramps and loose stairs. The place was empty, abandoned.

A little further on, the second site was more modest. Two guards watched over a ladder that sank into a well. Around them, the workers had cleared one of these large buildings looking like a palace or a fort. Artoria frowned. Until then, the only sentries he had seen surrounded the ruins. Inside the perimeter, the soldiers were content to patrol. You don't have to have a very penetrating mind to understand that these two were watching over something important.

As the sentries carried out their task with little zeal and mounds of spoil rose all around, Lancer was able to approach without attracting attention. He now had to find out how to enter. Of course, Cù Chulainn could materialize Gae Bolg and solve the problem. However, even if he hid the corpses, the first patrol to pass would find that the sentries had disappeared.

He was still assessing the various possibilities that the sound of a horse at a trot forced him to retreat further away from the rubble. Cautiously, he looked at the guards. These were two typical Redguards. Black skin, they had goats and whiskers, one of them has an eyepatch. They wore leather armor reinforced with rivets, helmets adorned with a point, and a mail veil. In addition to their lance, each of them had a scimitar and one or two curved daggers.

As for the horseman, he wore an iron plates' armor and a long mantle; his helmet with turban was inlaid with gold. That made him a senior officer. Despite that, the sentries had their orders:

"Stop! What's the password?"

"Dak'fron!" (2)

"You can come down."

Lancer smiled. He had just had a stroke of luck. He joined Saber and told her about the scene he had just witnessed. Together, they returned to the access to the underground without any special discretion. Seeing them arrive, the Redguards soldiers took alarm and seized their spears. After all, neither Lancer nor Saber really looked like Redguards. They raised their weapons in an act of prohibition. However, the observance of the instructions had to be more important than the suspicion they felt because they were asked for sesame. And Lancer provides the same answer as the officer they had previously interviewed. The soldiers immediately released the access to the underground. One of them even pushed the kindness to hold the ladder while they went down.
The well had recently been cleared. However, it sank deep underground, far from what had been the surface at the time when the city was dripping with life. The light of a torch at the bottom of the conduit allowed Artoria to discover the remains of a log formwork drilled by the prisoners of Kirei.

As they reached the shattered trunks with axes, the King of Britain realized that the opening was surrounded by strange objects. She reached out one hand and picked up a yellowed, brittle... human tibia, but not that of an adult. There were other bones coming out of niches still partly filled with earth. The slaves had drilled a well that opened into an ancient tomb. Was this the "buried temple"?

The room on which the casing lay was in fact a sort of huge log box. In the center, there was a coffin surrounded by impressive funeral furniture. Most of the objects were made of elven alloy: three-legged vases decorated with animal heads, usually hawks or eagles; four-legged food chests with decorations of bumps and two-headed snakes; three-legged wine vessels that can be placed on the fire to warm up the contents. The other pieces of the treasure included a pair of ivory cups with turquoise inlays; animal-shaped jewelry; shells.

A hole had been drilled with axes and led to a corridor carved into the rock... a veritable labyrinth with secondary passages. Grabbing a torch, Lancer glanced into one of the bowels. He discovered the forced wall of another tomb. The most amazing thing was that nothing had been looted. Kirei Kotomine had opened these graves in search of something. However, it was not blatant thievery...
The torch hold by Cù revealed a staircase descending into the depths. They came down and reached a natural cave. The place was vast, too vast to be illuminated by their torch, especially as the torch went out at once.

Lancer swore. His lighter threw sparks without succeeding in rekindling their light source.

As for Artoria, she felt the hairs of her neck rise up. An evil presence was nearby. Lancer's fighting instinct was less acute than her, but this presence could not escape him. He materialized his redbone spear and leaned back to back with Saber:

"Do you see him?"

"No..."
Artoria concentrated, drawing energy from her Dragon Core.

The instant after her aura intensified, spreading a clear blue light all around them. The light revealed a hideous creature, perched on a beam near the ceiling. Its eyes were entirely black, its skin resembled stone, it had big bats' wings and a single horn protruded on its snout.

The diabolical creature followed their movements, opening its mouth bristling with sharp teeth to let out a red tongue.

"A Gargoyle" whispered Lancer.

Saber nodded without a word. She had heard of these creatures, they were said to be statues that vampires would give life to through some sort of ritual.

"Watch out!"

Artoria didn't need Cù's warning. As the creature fell upon her, she rolled sideways, dodging the claw stroke, and straightened herself up in a fluid motion. In her hands, the air sheath of her sword dispersed and Excalibur revealed himself as a torch radiating a pure and... sacred light.

Dazzled by the golden clarity, the creature vacillated and retreated, raising its arms to protect itself. In its eyes, lust gave way to an expression of terror. As Saber leaped forward, the monster flapped its wings and dodged the blow by taking flight. Making a leap back, Artoria stood in guard, expecting to undergo a new dive attack. But Lancer laughed, pointing to a crack in the ceiling. Their opponent was running away through this passage...

"I think I have seen the most unshakable courage of all my life," said lancer in a falsely ecstatic tone.

But Artoria shrugged her shoulders, finally, it was better that way. The most important thing was to save Bazett and stop Kirei, this Gargoyle was just a waste of time.

"Let's keep going."

One floor lower, they discovered a long and narrow corridor bordered by stone doors. The senses of the ex-Servants - sharper than those of mere humans - warned them of the presence of something supernatural before them. The closer they came, the stronger this impression became. There was something in front of them... it was very powerful, it emanated an impression of danger, of power poorly contained, which swirled like a storm. The air was getting drier and drier, electric. They advanced without trying to cross the doors, discovered another staircase descending even further into the bowels of the ground before continuing through a corridor cut in stone and lit by torches fixed in wall sconces.

They advanced in silence, weapons in hand, it must be said that this corridor was regularly pierced with arrows slits and that they expected at any moment to be shot at them.

Nothing happened, the presence of the Gargoyle had to be considered sufficient.

They were in a huge cavern that stretched too far down for the light of the torches to illuminate it.

The corridor ended on a projecting balcony. There were only two stone doors decorated with a skull opening on the sides and an altar carved from a single stone block lit by metal braziers, and on this altar, a naked woman, alive because her breast was lifting regularly, but she was motionless.

"Bazett" murmured Lancer.

The Servant seemed about to throw himself forward, only the vision of what was beyond the altar held him back.

It was a tear in space, a kind of disk of red and pale light floating in the middle of the cave. A black and repugnant mud fell from it to the depths.

It was an opening leading to the interior of the Greater Grail!

Artoria looked at the scene with an intense feeling of repulsion. It was as if each of her nerves was inflamed by the sensation of an evil presence. These places are bathed in the miasmas of Angra Mainyu.
Hearing voices chanting, Saber and Lancer pressed against the wall. Coming from an opening invisible from their position, a procession of men dressed in mage dresses had just entered. Their dress was black, and the hood down prevented them from seeing the faces of the celebrants. Nevertheless, this garment was adorned with a recognizable embroidered emblem: a scrawny skull that seemed to scream, held at the end of a skeletal arm.

The symbol of the Order of the Black Wyrm, a necromancer society runs by Mannimarco... the most famous black mage in Nirn's history.

At the head of the procession came an elf wearing a high hat decorated with the design of a black sun, he also wore a red cape and a sash falling down to his waist. Both were embroidered with skulls and tibiae.

Behind him, one of the other necromancers held a high banner adorned with a skeleton brandishing a sword wrapped in black flames.

Not really the kind of assembly that made people laugh and dance...

Still whispering incantations, the necromancers surrounded Bazett, placing a circle of amulets around the altar.

Then they got up and came out through the same passage they had taken on the way out.
There was a moment of silence, then one of the doors in their field of vision opened. Kirei Kotomine came out.

The dark priest had not changed since the last time they saw him. He was simply dressed in black except for the long purple coat that wrapped him up to his feet. Around his neck, he wore a gold chain with a medallion showing a wolf's head in profile.

His face was more interesting. In the pallor of his skin, his eyes were dark chasms showing nothing more than boredom as deep as his disgust for the rest of the world. The smile was contemptuous and mocking. His messy hair formed a real mane that went down to his shoulders.

As he pulled out a black dagger from a scabbard hidden under his clothes, Lancer could not wait any longer. He threw himself forward, brandishing Gae Bolg...

The first blow of the spear hit nothing, the dark priest had jumped back. The next blow passed over his head, for he had stooped down... Although taken by surprise, Kirei avoided each attack with skill. From her position, despite her sharp senses, Saber struggled to follow the fight.
Then Cù Chulainn flickered, having taken an elbow in the chest, a combat technique called: Temple Gate Elbow Drop.

Instead of continuing the assault, Kirei stepped back. He smiled...

"What a surprise, we have visitors."

"You son of a bitch will pay!"

But Lancer's furious comeback only earned him another smile. Kirei looked at Saber walking towards him and greeted her with a simple nod of the head. Artoria's discomfort grew... the dark priest was facing two ex-Servants and he showed no panic. He just seemed... amused.

This was immediately confirmed by Kirei Kotomine:

"I'm so glad you came. I was just complaining that Angra Mainyu's arrival had no witnesses... After all, my lord should arrive surrounded by the fear and admiration of all."

With both hands clasped on her sword radiating golden light, Artoria faced the fiend in human shape:

"Why would you want to bring such a curse upon Nirn, do you hate humanity so much?"

Kirei seemed sincerely surprised:

"Hate humanity? Me? No one loves humanity more than I do! "

The dark priest crossed his arms behind his back as if he were perfectly indifferent to the weapons brandished against him. He smiled:

"I love humanity so much that I cannot accept the insignificant lives that most of the people of Nirn suffer. I want them to discover their true possibilities..."

"Their true possibilities" repeated Artoria suspiciously.

"Naturally, King Arthur, their true possibilities... it is only at the gates of death, beyond despair and pain, that man discovers his true substance. And since I am a good man who cares for my fellow man, I have decided to bring to all the terror and suffering that will enable them to free themselves from all the appearances that seem so important to them."

Disgusted, Lancer split on the ground:

"Forget it he is totally psycho, talking to a freak of his kind is useless. He's corrupt from start to finish, there's nothing to get out of him!"

But Saber remained cautious. The ex-Servant looked around her looking for the trap she sensed.

Her apprehension could not escape Kirei's watchful eye:

"You think I tricked you? Do you think guards are ambushed nearby? Or monsters? No... none of that. It's just us. That is to say, King Arthur, Cù Chulainn, Bazett Fragga McRemitz, your humble servant..." he made a short pause smiling mockingly "... and the billions of curses forming the substance of Angra Mainyu."

Suddenly he backed away, and reached out his hand, grabbing the black mud that continued to fall from the tear.

He picked up a ball of disgusting matter and threw it before him. It exploded and spread into a wide, corrosive, smoking puddle... from which counterfeit beings emerged, the embodiment of frightful curses.
Kirei burst out laughing:

"Well, let's have fun together!"

(1) Remember that the real name of Lancer is "Setanta". But after hearing a prediction that he would be a great warrior, he ran to the blacksmith of the village (whose name was Culann) to make him a weapon. Setanta killed the dog that kept him from entering... which put Culann in a very bad mood. "You killed my dog, well you will replace him. You will be chained to my door for a year to keep out unwelcome visitors!" Since then, Setanta has been known as Cù Chulainn or "Hound of Culann". Let us note in passing that if the goal was to learn good manners to Lancer, the method of Culann proved a complete failure...

(2) It is the name of a desert in Hammerfell, just north of Taneth.