[X] Repair the damage now, best not to be on the receiving end of an ambush you could have prevented with one short phone call. Now how does this thing work? OHGODDIANAWHATDIDIDO!?
Knowing Alistair leaving this little incident to fester will only make things worse. Better grab the bull by the horns and deal with it now than suffer for it later. Even if that involves defeating the infernal trickery of the device called a mobile phone.
"Yes, I think that, uh, calling him now would be best." Diana fishes a small black rectangular object out of one pocket, it sort of reminds you of the television but much smaller, and offers it to you. Carefully, rather nervous of breaking it, you take the device.
"Uh...." How does this thing work? A judicious prod reveals a back drop of stars, southern hemisphere stars judging by the lack of light pollution and Ayers Rock looming in the distance. There's a lot of buttons, or maybe they're icons, and you have no idea what they mean.
"Wow," Diana enunciates each letter, "that's actually impressive." Resisting the urge to just push her into the car and be done with it you climb in yourself and scowl at the mysterious phone-button-things. You will work this out. You know secrets beyond the imagining of the mind that concocted this device. You Can Work This Out!
Five minutes later Diana hands the phone back. It's making a ringing noise. "I don't know what you did but please don't do it again." She mouths as you bring the phone to your ear. This bit you roughly know how to do, which is a relief.
"Kirkwood solutions, Alistair Kirkwood speaking to tell you that I'm having a blasted holiday so..." So the phone number he'd given Diana was a business number. Interesting.
"Kirkwood, shut up." There's a moment of silence that manages to feel shocked.
"So you aren't dead." Alistair says shortly, voice level and emotionless. Your brows furrow, usually you can read him better than this. Is he trying to throw you off or is it just the phone getting in the way?
"No."
"Good." A longer pause where neither of you speak. You don't know quite how to start and Alistair seems to lack inspiration as well. That's either a relief or a very, very bad sign. "So... is Berserker...?"
"We've moved past our differences." You nod before realising he can't see the motion. Heat rushes to your cheeks. "Some of what I said I should not have. At that time it was inappropriate and foolish. I..." Alistair laughs, a quiet sound that others probably would have missed. Your furrowed brows progress to a full grown frown. What's so funny?
"Are you apologising to me?" You don't answer. He takes that as confirmation that you are. "Blood and sand you are! Ha!" Calm, you're going to stay calm and not shout at him down this contraption. Even if he is being more of an ass than usual.
"Kirkwood..." his name comes out as a growl. Thankfully he takes the hint and stops laughing.
"Listen Myr, I-" an undignified, half muffled yell of frustration escapes you.
"It's Lady Ia'Nuoch to you Kirkwood and I'm not enduring this contraption to listen to you. I regret some of what was said at the pier, I hope it won't have any further repercussions that could affect our ability to work together in the future. That's it." Silence stretches out for more than a moment and it's uncomfortable. You were a hair shy of shouting at him a second time while trying to apologise for doing precisely that. If only he could stop finding precisely the wrong things to say!
"Yeah, fine, whatever you want." His accent has grown a little more pronounced than usual and his speech is markedly more clipped and formal. That's not a good sign. "I'll be investigating where Caster's set up with Rider tonight, she has a decent rank in magic resistance in case you're worried. Meet me at the city library at nine or stay the hell out of my way." With that he hangs up, dull tone sounding in your ear.
That probably could have gone better.
No affection for you at all Lady Myrna. Berserker's knowing, slightly smug tone fills your head.
Anyone else and I'm sure he'd be planning their demise already. That's not particularly comforting. Mostly because there's a good chance Alistair is doing that anyway.
[X] Head home, prepare familiars and plan out a patrol route. You're going to protect the people living here from as much of the collateral as possible so it's time to start acting like it!
"Home ma'am, or is there another place of interest you would like to visit before nightfall?" Wilfred asks, flipping an indicator on. From the direction he's going to turn in it seems he's assuming you'll be heading home. He's not wrong.
"Yes, home. I should prepare for tonight and planning where we intend to go and what we intend to do in the event of encountering Archer or Caster again is worth more than wandering aimlessly through the city." Well, not necessarily aimlessly but looking for Caster screams 'bad idea' and while preparing an ambush certainly is attractive something tells you it would work out poorly.
"You mean we, we should prepare, right Myr?" Diana says, nudging you with her elbow. There it is again, she keeps assuming that you're in this together. That she's going to come along to battles between Servants that level entire city blocks with terrifying ease. Much as you loathe Alistair he's right, Diana's not cut out for a fight.
"You know I appreciate your help and getting me a catalyst." You say slowly. "But that's not at all like what's going to happen tonight. Tonight it's going to be heroic spirits and Mages like Alistair trying to murder one another. That's not a place for your style of magecraft."
"It's not a place for your style either." Diana folds her arms, hazel eyes narrowing at you and the tiniest of scowls putting furrows in her brow.
"My style being pulling sharps bits of metal towards myself then throwing them at my target? Or the spells on my crest that can cut people with air? Or...."
"Okay, I get it, you can fight." Diana snaps. "But you're supporting the class that often kills their master through pranna drain. You can't use that much pranna to defend yourself without being at risk of Berserker killing you by accident." The possibility of him killing you deliberately goes unsaid.
"Diana I know what I'm doing." You try and reassure her that it won't happen to you. Unlike the usual Masters of Berserker, looking for a boost for an otherwise low parameter Servant, you can fight well without pushing Berserker's madness into a dangerous area for you and his sanity. It's not ideal but it's much better than most situations.
"So does Alistair! And if you think he won't sell that information to another Master to help him get rid of a Servant who might turn into freaking Dracula you haven't been paying attention." Diana's flushed a little with anger, leaning across the seat so she's almost nose to nose with you. You can count every faint golden freckle across her nose and cheeks with ease.
"I don't trust him as far as I could throw him. Equally your help is hardly going to prevent Alistair making a deal with another Master behind my back." Diana flinches away from you fractionally.
"Well I...."
"Look, I'll think about it okay but it'd help if I had some idea of why you want to come along and get in the way of Servants fighting each other and trying to kill other Masters if they can." You've not forgotten Archer and her cool promise to shoot one of those metal bolts of hers through your heart.
"But... Servants fight other Servants, not Masters." Diana says and you smile thinly.
"Archer would disagree with you."
Arriving back at the house you and Wilfred set to work covering the city as much as possible with familiars. There aren't enough to cover every street or even most streets but between you it's possible to survey most of the area. If something flashy happens one or both of you will know about it. Diana's taken up station in front of the television thing, flicking through channels and occasionally listening to the news to see if there are further hints to what's occurring in the Holy Grail War.
Thankfully the incident between you and Caster in Southsea has gone unnoticed.
Lightly monitoring your familiars, so you're used to it, you sit down with the map of the area and Berserker in the dining room and work out a reasonable patrol route that will take you around the city at least once. It skates the border between more residential and more commercial areas, hopefully if you can keep the fighting out of the residential zones there'll be fewer bystanders to worry about.
Of course the most ideal place to fight would be somewhere abandoned or empty. Unfortunately Portsmouth isn't really full of such places, not ones that would be reliably empty of people anyway. It's a pity the Tricorn Centre's been demolished, fighting in that monstrosity and possibly demolishing it in the process would hardly be a loss people would mourn.
"So you intend to draw our enemies after us into the less populous areas but, equally, places where much economic damage would be done to the city." Berserker says, once you've explained just what a shopping centre is to him.
"I care about lives, a business destroyed in a natural disaster can be rebuilt a person can't be. We just need to make sure the shops are empty before engaging our enemies." Berserker frowns, he knows more about how things work than you do but he's not exactly renowned for caring about life.
"You would be robbing people of their income, possibly killing them in the long term rather than the short." You sigh, that's true but you can't think of a better way. Besides, things aren't that dire in the mundane world, right? The loss of a few shops wouldn't actually kill people these days... would it?
"I don't have a better idea and the modern world is more forgiving." You hope anyway. "Do you have a better idea?" He ruled a country he should know how to not ruin people's lives.
"I am not the one trying to save these people." Berserker says blandly, so that's a no to whether he has a better idea or not, wonderful. "If it's the best you can do...."
"For the moment, it is. It's getting late." You need to eat before heading out into the steadily darkening evening. And there's the question of whether or not you'll meet Alistair to go look into Caster's base. "Berserker, Alistair and Rider plan to probe Caster's defences. Do you think we should join them?"
"I would prefer that to fighting Archer again." Well, no arguments there. Caster didn't try and kill you, infinitely preferable enemy on that basis alone. Although, if his base is somewhere residential then you either should stop Alistair or go with him to try and control any collateral damage the fight may cause.
You go to the living room via the kitchen where Wilfred has made a tower of sandwiches and stacked them on one of the china platters. The plate is set on the coffee table by Wilfred and Diana switches to the news again. Apparently the government is trying to cut back on some kind of budget and people are complaining.
"Diana, where's that spot on the map that's vanished?" You ask, taking a chicken sandwich and demolish it.
"Uh... middle of student housing for Portsmouth Uni." Ah... that's less than ideal. "Why?"
"Alistair wants to go after Caster tonight, I was thinking-"
"If you're going I'm going, someone needs to watch your back." Diana sets her jaw stubbornly and glares at you, daring you to refuse her.
[ ] Go after Caster
-[ ] Lie to Diana about what you're doing
-[ ] Let Diana come with you
-[ ] Tell Diana she's not coming with you
[ ] Go on patrol like you've planned out
-[ ] Let Diana come with you
-[ ] Tell Diana she's not coming with you
Man, I love writing Alistair's dialogue
Even if I do change all of it from my initial ideas half the time. He's just so much fun.
