13th May 2005. An undisclosed location in central London.

Everyone here knows the stakes. Everyone here knows just how much effort has been spent to prepare things here, and to keep everything hidden from watchful eyes. Concealment can only go so far, and there will be no hiding once all is set in motion. But at that point, there is no force on earth that can stop it.

The meeting isn't in person of course, nobody here trusts the others enough. Gentlemen's agreements about conduct only go so far, especially with the prize at stake.

"So." A womans voice, icy as the highland gales. "We begin tonight. If you have yet to finish your preparations, I'm afraid there is no time."

"She is right." A mans voice. Refined. Unassailably confident. Surprisingly at ease for the tension in the air. "The stars and souls are right. To wait would be to risk losing it all. In fact, my proxy is at work as we speak."

"Yes-yes. Of course you would know the right time. Just to be clear, our arrangements still hold? " Heavy breathing over the line. A nervous man, even among conspirators. "Where's our seventh? Has she-"

"She's jumping at shadows more'n you.." Twitchy. You can almost feel him champing at the bit, eager to begin. "I saw'er dig in. Don't try and get to her, yous all know what she'll do."

He's interrupted by a bout of coughing over the line. An old voice. Weak and frail. "Enough. We are here. We know what we must do."

"Seven souls conjured. Six souls to the grave." A deep, rich voice, heavy as a tomb's door. "And power and glory for the victor, to do with as they wish."

"If all is as we have intended, then we will change everything.." The first voice again. "We have seven faculties of expertise put into ensuring that this will work."

"Aaand if it doesn't, which I'm very very sure won't happen, we represent enough of a bloc that we can shield ourselves from the worst of the reprisals, can't we all?."

"Now now, time is too precious to lose." The deep voice cuts in again, cutting off the nervous man. "And I have no intention of letting the Lord of Astronomy's proxy beat me to my summoning."

The line goes dead as he hangs up, the others following suit in short order.
And before long, in dark cellars and private studies beneath the city of London, seven voices speak a single chant, answered by seven souls and a single question.

Are you my master?

The Fifth holy grail war has begun.

14th May 2005.
You wake early, after a restless night.

You are...

[] THE HEIRESS. You are the successor to a long and noble line of mages, and a student at the clock tower. (NOTE- This character is relatively fixed, with little room for customisation)
-[] Your first name

[] THE WASTE. You are nothing. You have nothing. You only live because you might one day be of use, and it costs nothing to keep you locked in this sunless cell, if you can call this accursed life living. (This character has more room for customisation)
-[] Your name.
-[] Sex
-[] Your appearance (Note- regardless of what is here, you will still "look like shit")

Choice of HEIRESS or WASTE to be tallied first, with the winning suboption from that category to be picked afterwards.


Art commissioned from @Renu

General information.

Character profile.
Name: Mimi Yagami.
Age: 20 or so, you think.
Magical ability: After getting some help, you have discovered that you have a surprising amount of magical ability, especially when you thought you had none. You've got a fairly average amount of circuits that work with the majority of yours having been burned out in what would seem to have been a single traumatic event that you cannot remember. You don't know any magecraft, but you wouldn't be able to use any that isn't curse-based, which you are also resistant to.
Occupation: Specimen. NEVER AGAIN. Currently, none.

- THE WASTE. You are nothing. You have nothing. You only live because you might one day be of use, and it costs nothing to keep you locked in this sunless cell, if you can call this accursed life living. (This character has more room for customisation)
- Mimi Yagami
- F
- Nervous Blonde

Far below the streets of London, in the deepest vaults of the Jigmarie, you wake from a thankfully dreamless sleep. Fumbling in the dark, you reach out and flick the lights on, illuminating the wretched cell you live your life in. Windowless white walls. A simple toilet, sink and mirror in the corner. Other basic furnishings, austere and featureless and with no sharp edges. A handleless door, fitted with one-way glass. And absolutely nothing personal or yours. You check the clock, high on the wall below a too-small vent. Just past 9, which means…

Right on cue, a hatch at the bottom of the door opens, and a tray is shoved through. A plastic tray, with a plastic bowl and a plastic spoon that you can't hurt yourself with, and another bowl of cold watery gruel that's oh so perfectly calibrated to have all the nutrition you need to keep you alive and healthy. God how you fucking hate it.

You drag yourself over to the sink, and begin to wash yourself down, getting a good look at yourself in the mirror as you do so. As always, you look like you woke up on the wrong side of dead.



Unhealthily pale skin, visible ribs and a scattering of burn scars, a perpetual bedhead of scraggly blonde hair with a slight oil-slick sheen to it, and bags under your pale green eyes. Finally the black ink of your tattoo, kept in clear view just above your wrist. A string of letters, and a series of spaced black lines. A barcode. Your catalogue entry. You've overheard enough at your occasional medical checkups to know just where you are, and what you are to the Clock Tower. A specimen.

You finish scrubbing up and get dressed, shoving on a set of moth-eaten trackies, a stained, ill fitting shirt, mismatched socks. Grabbing your food from the floor, you take a seat on the bed. Eyes darting to the door throughout, and ears on edge for any noise from outside, you begin forcing the tasteless sludge down your throat. As you reach the last of the bowl, some goes down the wrong way, sending you into a coughing fit as you try and clear your throat. Doubling over, you manage to avoid throwing your food up, because you know all too well that they won't give you any more if that happens. But as always, when you've finished coughing, you can taste iron in your mouth and there's a faint red spray on your palms.

Wiping the blood off onto the side of the bowl, you collapse back onto your bed, and stare up at the ceiling, and try to avoid thinking about anything at all. You've got a book you could read, some dry tome plucked off the library shelves at random, but you're not quite bored enough for that yet. Besides, what's the point in reading about magic theory when your handlers have made it abundantly clear that you don't have any talent worth speaking of.

And so, the hours pass in your day, the same as every other day you can remember, in the eleven or so years you've been here.


But this time, something's different. Just past midday, you hear footsteps outside your door, and you bolt upright as the locks disengage, the door opening to reveal an unfamiliar bald man in a suit and sunglasses that screams bodyguard, along with the "familiar" sight of the floor manager of your part of the archives, a scrawny, brown haired frenchman carrying a scanner and a clipboard. Pierre something, you think he's called.

"Research material RMJM:LSNMFKI, Mimi Yagami." It takes you a moment to remember that that's your name. He's bored, reciting your label by rote.

"You know that's me." You reply, your voice as flat as ever, holding out your wrist before wincing as Pierre roughly grabs it, flashing your barcode with the scanner. Slapping the printed-out label onto the clipboard, he hands the bald man a sheet of paper.

"You've been requisitioned. Get moving." He states.

You hastily kick on your shoes, another pair of second-hand crappy ones, before you get led out of your cell, the door locking behind you with an audible clunk as you emerge into the dusty corridors of the archives. Your cell is at the end of a small row of similar pods, with miles of shelving stretching around the rest of this basement.

The bodyguard begins striding off, Pierre grabbing you by the wrist again and pulling you along behind him. You're not going the way you usually go when it's time for your checkups, which skirts around the outside of the archive; you're going right through the centre of the shelving. The dense, disorganised shelving with poor sight lines. When Pierres attention is focused on catching up with the bald man.

[] Make a break for it
[] Just follow along.