"Our story starts when the corpse of the Great One known as Kos washed up on the shores of this small fishing village." Simon begun as he and the group began walking towards the entrance of the Fishing Hamlet with him as their guide.
Of course, they were wary if all of this was a trap but the harrowed hunter had given them no reason to not trust him and were willing to listen to the story that he was telling them at least.
"A group of fishermen found the washed-up corpse on one of their local fishing spots and were intrigued by the strange creature that they had discovered." Simon waved his right hand as the misty fog that lightly surrounded the group as they were walking. The mist obeyed his commands as it begun to build up and form a story for everyone to see.
It showed three fishermen finding the corpse of Kos and the three were inspecting the corpse to see what it was.
"Two of the three fisherman wished to rip the carcass open, to understand what the creature was but the last remaining fisherman had stopped them both. He was the one of the village's elders and seeing the eldritch corpse had reprimanded the two other fisherman for their nativity.
The scene changed to see what Simon had exactly told them with a fisherman reprimanding the two others as he motioned to the corpse.
"He told them that this was a gift from the high heavens, a test from the gods to see if they would resist the temptation to violate the corpse. The elder returned back to the village to tell the rest of the villagers of what had occurred."
The little story that was being told right before their eyes then collapsed back into mist only for it to move as Simon then motioned to his left to which the mist obeyed.
"He proclaimed that a god had graced their village and as such he commanded that the corpse's body be worshipped by the entire village."
The mist then formed an image of the elder proclaiming the good news to the entire village as they watched the elder motion to the sky and his promises of good fortune from the high heavens.
"But what is the point of worshipping a corpse?" Tokiomi interrupted. If one worshipped a dead being then that person was a fool.
Simon chuckled before he explained. "Death for a human and for a Great One differs immensely Sir Tokiomi. A Great One is never truly dead, even if their body is. They can exist in spirit and watch the human world without a physical body."
The mist then changed scenes as the entire village were on their knees bowing reverently before Kos.
"The elder was right in a way. Kos having seen this display of honor towards her blessed the village with her powers. It was very noticeable that something had changed within the village as harvests were now bountiful and no disasters harmed the village."
Scenes of fisherman pulling up bountiful nets of fish, what was once a small village expanding as families started to live longer and longer, and of other good fortunes were playing out.
"It was a very good time here." Simon then snapped his fingers which dispelled the mist as the group was now no longer being surrounded by mist.
"A Noble Phantasm?" Artoria curiously asked.
"Yes, I must admit that it isn't the flashiest of them but it certainly has it uses. A Noble Phantasm is the crystallization of a legend, yours would be Excalibur since it is what defined your tale." He motioned to the divine sword that was concealed by the mythic winds. "But I do not possess such a weapon. It is true that I used a bowblade that my peers scorned me for but I will always be a seeker of knowledge first than a hunter."
" The Dead Man's Whispers ." Was the name of his Noble Phantasm.
"I had a similar thirst for knowledge like the Healing Church, hence the reason why I joined their ranks, but I knew that in the quest for knowledge you had to look to the past to understand where it all stemmed from, not look to the future blindly without caution." He begun to remember the countless days he had spent in the Chalice Dungeons, enthusiastically reading any and all forms of written books that were left behind by the ancients. "So hence this is my Noble Phantasm, the ability to create a Reality Marble that can dissect the past of any location that I use it in."
"A worthy Noble Phantasm for a seeker of knowledge." Diarmuid praised.
"Thank you, Knight of Fianna." Simon praised before he continued on with his storytelling.
The group finally entered the Fishing Hamlet and as the group begun passing by the soaked houses of the fishing village, they begun to see that Simon's mist was beginning to reveal itself once more. But that was a minor side note as they noticed the state that the houses were in.
What might've been a quaint home was nothing more than a wreckage that was more appropiate for to house pests than humans. Roofs were caved in, walls painted with blood, windows broken into. It was clear that the good fortune of the village had ran out.
As they made their way deeper into the village the servants and masters looked up to see the crucified corpse of what was probably a villager hanging in the air with a noose tied to his feet. The frozen expression of horror on the man's face told them that he had suffered for many hours before the blood rushing to his head killed him.
Simon took note of their horrified expressions of the man's gruesome death as the cue to resume telling his story. "And do you wish to know why one should heed the whispers of the past, it's because those very whispers tell the present of what not to do. As the saying goes, history is bound to repeat itself if nothing changes."
The mist then begun to pick up as Simon resumed his role of story teller. "However, with the good fortune of Kos, so too did the whispers begin to spread of a village blessed by a Great One."
The mist then begun to show a collection of random conversations. Those held at a bar, over a campfire, between soldiers and neighbors, all were shown.
"And very soon those very whispers made their way into the ears of the Holy Church, more specifically the First Vicar, Laurence."
The mist then shifted to the Grand Cathedral with a very familiar figure kneeling in front of Laurence as he told the Vicar of the Fishing Hamlet.
For that very familiar figure was none other than Simon himself.
"You told him about the village, you're the reason how they found the village out." Breathed out Irisviel as the group looked at him in shock with this new revelation.
"Yes, I was very naïve back then. I knew what would have happened if Laurence heard of the village but I stubbornly believed that if I, his most trusted spy, told him about the village and warned him of the Great One's presence he would not act the way he would. That he would thread carefully when it came to handling the village, I was wrong." Simon confessed as he looked around the area that they walking through. The way that it was looking they would soon hit the middle of the village, before the lighthouse that looked over the murky sea.
Seeing he had some time to spare he begun to deviate from his story a bit. "The Dead Man's Whisper is only as strong as the meaning the place has in a person. If it was any other place then it would be nothing more than a few words that I would have to piece together but here," The harrowed hunter brought his hand up to the sky as he allowed rain to be caught by his palm.
"But here it's as real as real can be. When I heard of the fate that befallen this village, I hurried over to see if what I had heard was real and when I did, that was when I decided to abandon my role as a hunter."
"What did you see?" Kiritsugu asked. He could see the guilt that Simon had for the part he had in the fate of this village, the same he had when he killed Natalia over the sea so long ago.
"Hmph why don't you find out." He chuckled before he snapped his fingers, the mist responding to it. The mist begun to pick up as they made their way to the middle of the village, evident by the well that marked it.
"Once word of a village being blessed by a Great One, the Healing Church was skeptical of it. After all one could've mistaken any miracle as being a gift from the gods. So, they sent a group of Choir members to investigate."
The mist formed into a vision of the spies in disguise riding on horseback into the village. An elder came and greeted them with no animosity whatsoever as they were treated as an honored guest. There the vision flickered as the spies gathered information regarding the village as they asked around the village for the info to make a report.
"Then the spies left the village after they gathered enough information and made their report to confirm the existence of Kos in the village. With that Laurence assembled some of his most loyal members and hunters to embark on a trip to the village."
The mist changed as Laurence with his loyal members met with the village elders, shaking hands with them under the guise of this being a Healing Church missionary run, how they wished to bless the village with some of the good rejuvenating blood.
"If there was one good thing that Laurence was good at it was being an actor. That man could change personas in the blink of an eye. Probably how he was able to even start the Healing Church in the first place." When Laurence put his mind to something very little could stop him. Even in the thralls of beasthood that mentality still stuck through.
"The elders were wary of him, always keeping an eye on him and ensuring that he could not do as he pleased." The group was now beginning to make their way past the well and up the hill to the lighthouse.
Simon continued with the story. "But the youngsters were infatuated with him, enthralled by the miracles that he could perform with the blood. Day by day he wormed his way into the heart of the younger generations until one day one of them offered to take him down to see the corpse of Kos."
The group soon traversed the hill and soon saw the lighthouse that towered over the entire village. "And when he laid eyes on the corpse of Kos, the fate of this village was doomed." They walked past a lone grave overlooking the sea. A bouquet of flowers rested on top of it, perhaps as some sort of act for forgiveness to the being that rested just below it.
"Look and see for yourselves the corpse of Kos." Simon announced as he let the group gaze down from the cliff to where the Great One resided. True to his story it really did look like a washed-up corpse, a feeling of dread washed over them as they looked upon the Great One's pale body.
"I truly did believe that this was the day Laurence lost himself to the blood, given in to the insatiable blood thirst. After all, how could any resist the rivers of blood that was spilled on this day?" Simon motioned for them to follow as they made their way to the second half of the village.
"With seeing the corpse for himself Laurence let the hunters loose into the village without any remorse. Kill any that put up a fight, damm those who surrendered to being lab experiments."
Here the biggest change occurred as Simon's mist enveloped the entirety of this part of the village. The scene quickly changed from a foggy fishing village into a burning nightmare as day changed to night, clear skies turned into a smoky abyss, peaceful calm replaced by cries of death.
"No one was spared on this night. The hunters descended unto this village with no warning as families that were asleep woke up to not the sun but of the cries of their neighbors as they learned the meaning of horror. Men who fought back were slaughtered in front of their loved ones, women were chained up as they saw their beloveds die at their feet, children were flogged and beaten, and elders were tortured in front of all to see."
The mist then played out the horrifying scenes before them as they walked through the village. Each member balked at the scenes that surrounded them. Irisviel was horrified, Kiritsugu steeled himself as he covered Shirou's eyes so he could not hear what was happening but that did little as the boy could still hear the cries of death, Maiya and the assassins had faces of stone but were deeply disturbed by what they saw, Saber and Lancer looked ready to jump into combat to fight the mirages but obviously they could not, Tokiomi unfortunately did not share the same feeling as he would have done something similar in his quest for the Root, not like he would say it out loud.
However, Simon knew what the magus was thinking but said nothing about it. "Micolash you better have something atrocious planned for him." Was all he thought before he continued storytelling.
"The nightmare did not end there for the villagers, after the hunters had come and razed the village the Choir came and begun to experiment on the surviving villagers in hopes of understanding the blessings that Kos had bestowed upon them."
The group walked past the village as they entered the caverns of a mountain. As they walked in the mist then channeled another scene as the next story segment began.
"The Choir violated any villager that they could get their hands on. There was this idea that one could ascend into godhood if one had eyes lining the insides of their brain as a way to understand more of the cosmos. They ripped into the heads of their experiments, searching for some sort of cosmic secrets in their heads to which there was none, but that did not deter them at all."
What the mist did next was outrageous to say the least. As they walked the high rafters of the cavern, the mist played a taste of what the Choir had done in the name of godhood. Villages were strapped in beds as they screamed and writhed as Choir members forcibly ripped into their heads, uncaring if their patient was to die from said experiment.
And if they died from the procedure and had nothing for the Choir?
Well there was a convenient ledge to throw them off of as their violated bodies littered the cavern floor.
"I think I'm going to be sick." Irisviel muttered as they slowed descended to the bottom of the cavern. With each step the piles of body begun to climb and climb without signs of stopping.
"That is good, it shows that you are equally as disturbed as I am with what is happening here, it shows that you have a kind heart. Something rare in those that dabble in the mystic arts." Simon looked back and smiled before continuing.
"But despite Laurence's efforts those that survived, brutally transformed by the experiments or simply awaiting their turn, held onto the protection of Kos, believing that she would liberate them from their shackles." The mist disappeared as they group waded through the bottom floor and entered a dark tunnel.
As they walked through the shadowy tunnels, feet slowly traversing the water that was up to their knees, Simon began to slowly end the story.
"They prayed for vengeance, for their mother goddess to punish the wretches. They prayed but Kos did not act right away, in reality she would've probably never chosen to act if Laurence had not committed biggest offense one could've done to a Great One."
"Every Great One craves an offspring, a child to pass off their mantle onto, the child taking the place of the father, the natural order of secession. For within the corpse of Kos a Great One was birthed to replace her and Laurence knew that. He believed if he was to ingest the baby Great One then he could ascend higher into the cosmos, how unfortunate that Kos had something else to say."
Soon they made it to the last trek. They came across a tunnel filled with pale people with serpentine like bodies, kneeling reverently towards the exit of the tunnel.
"When Laurence decided it was time to now violate the corpse of Kos to find the infant Great One, Kos acted. Inflicting a curse on not only the hunters present but to the future generations that would follow. For if any hunter fell in to the blood lust that plagued the hunters of the Fishing Hamlet, that they would be cursed to an internal nightmare in which the blood lust never ended. It was through the actions of a young hunter that the orphaned Great One returned back to its mother's embrace."
Just as he finished the story, they had arrived at the Fishing Hamlet's final destination.
The washed-up corpse of Kos.
Beyond the murky sea filled with ship masts, high above the sky the sun shaped in a clock cast its warmth over them. But it was not that of assurance but that of demoralization. Like it was a symbol of what the Church had done to the Fishing Hamlet would never fade, that it would be as eternal as the sun taking its throne in the sky.
"Now that you know of our sad tale, I ask you, what lesson was there to be learned from it?" He asked curiously.
The group remained in silence as they contemplated the man's word. Each person had their own ideas to what the lesson might've been but as they played with the idea in their head the flaws came up within them.
Was it that there were some things that one could not reach? The Church had certainly tried very hard to reach godhood and failed but that was not a lesson one could learn from. If anything, it taught them not to reach for what seemed impossible.
Was it that nothing lasted forever, but everyone knew that one already so that was out.
As the group played with their own thoughts, unsure of what Simon might be looking for until Kiritsugu said his answer out loud.
"Truth." He said as he looked at Simon for confirmation. "The lesson of this story is truth."
"But how does that," Tokiomi was about to refute the magus killer's answer but was cut off as the hunter interrupted him.
"Yes, this is a story of truth, well done." The hunter smiled as it did not take long for someone to figure it out.
"Truth? Like the cosmic truth of the Great Ones that the Church wanted so badly." Irisviel asked with the tilt of her head in confusion.
Simon laughed at her confusion before answering her. "No, nothing like that, but rather what truth means as a whole." He smiled as he took one last look at the group before him.
"Truly it was a privilege to be your storyteller but now the next story must begin." He said as he begun to slowly fade into mist to the shock of the others. "This is not goodbye; I know that we will be seeing each other soon but I must let my companion do his part. Survive and we shall see each other soon." Was all he said before he vanished in a cloud of mist.
The group looked at each other as they tried to decipher his last words to them.
But fate would not grant them that courtesy as not even a second later did something move.
And it was coming from within the corpse of Kos, the writhing becoming worse within the body with each second passing by.
"The truth is not inherently bad, no it is a facet of human life, something that we all must confront eventually." Simon's voice rang out as whatever was the cause of the sudden twitching within Kos's body begun to move out.
"As common as truth is, we easily forget the grasp it has on us."
"How groundbreaking it can be in one's life or those around you." A hand slithered its way out of the body of Kos. The slimy appendage grasping at the ground as it was used to push the rest of the body out.
"But truth itself is not what one must be concerned about but rather what one does when they confront that truth."
"Laurence never did lose himself in the bloodlust but rather when he first visited the corpse of Kos. For all his achievements, all that he had done to better humanity, he had expected to finally receive the recognition he wished so much for...only for Kos to deny him the godhood he sought so desperately after." From the depths of Kos's corpse, a pale humanoid figure emerged from it. Gasping for air as he pushed himself off the ground, a massive pink placenta trailing off its left arm.
"Will you be proud of the truth that sits in front of you?" The figure was sobbing as it straightened itself up from the ground. The masters and servants recognized what stood before them and they readied themselves for the inevitable confrontation.
"Will you even recognize it? Or will it be the thing you feared from the very start?" The Orphan of Kos stopped sobbing as its eyes opened up and landed on the group in front of it and in response and let loose a chilling screech.
"Because in truth..." The Orphan stopped its screeching before it tensed its body and leapt into the sky and rocketed itself at the servants charging it, placenta ready to smash its opponents to dust.
"There is only death."
That took a while to get this done but here it is! I spent so long on making sure the story flowed well. I wanted to have Simon to have a more pronounced role in the Fishing Hamlet and decided the way that I wrote his story was the best fit. And you all know what the next chapter is so be prepared for that!
Love all the support this is getting. Your reviews really inspire me to write better and better chapters.
Hope you guys are staying safe and wearing your damm mask when you go out.
If you have any suggestions or criticism don't be afraid to review or PM me. I will answer all to the best of my ability. And if you enjoyed this drop a fav/follow it really helps me write even better chapters for you all.
That's all for now.
PRAISE THE GOOD BLOOD!