pinetree

Session I •「Walking into Wall」

A bus rides the midwestern roads of the United States, its passengers suffer with the heat inside, despite the mild temperature of the day. Seems like the windows are stuck. All of them. Obviously, plenty of better rides go through this path, but Volumnia Innogen, sheltered as she was, had no way of knowing before buying her tickets. A few weeks ago, she was contacted by an anonymous person looking to hire her to join a pseudo-Holy Grail War. The war was a simple one, the usual supbar grail copy, six Servants, small town… except the job wasn’t to win the war. The person starting the war was Brevig Grottwader in partnership with an unknown party. The contractor — whoever they are — has some grudge against Brevig and hired Volumnia, alongside three other Masters, to join the war with a single objective: Kill Brevig. Luckily, Lum also had her own reasons to want Brevig dead. She was now heading for the town of Wall, South Dakota, close to the Badlands National Park within which the Grottwader Estate was located. A small town — no more than 700 inhabitants — and basically controlled by the Wall Drug Pharmacy, which decades ago had expanded from the pharmacy business into owning most of the tourist-focused business in town. As Grail Wars ought to be, everything was a mess from the start. As soon as her bus approached the city, it was immediately flipped. Without explanation or warning, the bus appeared a few meters ahead, as if teleported, facing the opposite direction. Despite the confusion of the passengers and driver, nothing else seemed to be happening. Lum, of course, was already on high alert: The war had started. She walked through the main roads of the small town of Wall, headed to the hotel her contractor has indicated, only to find that part of the second floor of the building was covered by tarps, waiting repairs after some kind of accident destroyed the wall of one of the rooms. Already exasperated at the situation, she went to the hotel, expecting to meet her contractor. She found a hypnotized attendant who led her to her room, where she only found a flip-phone. In it, two applications: CHAT and The Great Cryptids of America III. Realizing the phone will be her only contact with the contractor, they start messaging. She receives the coordinates of the Niobraran Lakeside — Brevig’s workshop — and the name of her three allies: Rute-Elena Bichelecha Giulianna Peilou di Romanicci Hanah Kartraksonn The three people with whom she’d share the trials and troubles of this war… But oh, there was another message. “Giulianna and Hanah have gone rogue. Kill on sight.” Great start! Let’s contact our remaining ally through the CHAT then. “Don’t contact me.” Superb! The growing exasperation settles as Volumnia realizes her current situation. She feels the energy of the leyline flowing below the hotel, how convenient. She had reasons to be in this war besides Brevig, of course. Despite everything else going haywire, she is sure that her Servant will be here. All she needs is to say the words——————— To activate her circuits——————— To create the magical circle——————— To let magical energy flow, sparks fly, fire fill her body in the rush of mystical power that is the connection to the grail. Her Command Spell takes shape, as well as her Servant. But she should’ve known — everything was going wrong, and the face looking down on her is not the one she expected. Rider Dorothy Gale, though she won’t reveal her identity to her Master for quite a while, manifests. Abrasive and distrustful of mages, the two trade stern stares and blunt words before settling on tentative politeness. It’s time to start. Rider finds three fireflies trying to fly out of the room, and Volumnia quickly recognizes them as rudimentary Familiars, sets them aside and moves on to investigate the room next to theirs. The broken wall there makes it seem like something flew out of the room, taking the wall with it. On the ground is a flip-phone, broken and abandoned. Without losing any time, they attempt to leave the town and confirm that some kind of magecraft is keeping them in. Trying to leave causes Volumnia to be flipped back into the town, as if her position was mirrored with the limit of the town as the axis. Dorothy’s innate magical resistance protects her, but it’s of little use if her Master can’t come along. She does get the sense that killing whoever is in control of this will free them, so the poses the question to her Master: is she willing to do it? Absolutely. "Braid buds bonding over mage murder", illustrated Decided to get a better feel of land, the pair goes to the top of the highest building in town, a three-story building a few meters away from the famous (?) 80ft Dinosaur, a green sauropod statue and one of the main road attractions owned by Wall Drug. They feel the remnants of magical energy use in a rescue farm on the other side of town, from the hotel they just came from and around the dinosaur they are next to. Going down, they find a group of tourists gathering around something on the road instead of the sauropod, and are quickly drawn into a tourist scam as an excited guide offers to sell a photo of the legendary Thunder Horse, which has been visiting the town lately, apparently. They pay $5 for the photo, a shadowy shape with little defining features besides being a quadruped. Then pay $10 to see the footprints it left… which are just out on the street. Fifteen dollars poorer, they move on to the National Grasslands Visitor Center hoping to find more concrete information on weird sightings. Rider invades the office of the building and looks through the emails on a computer left on. There’s a series of emails from a certain Dave, raving about different cryptid sightings of late. PEOPLE HEARD THE BADLANDS BANSHEE! THUNDER HORSE SIGHTINGS? MOTHMAN SIGHTINGS THREE DAYS AGO! I HAVE PROFF THUNDER HORSE WITNESS AT DINOSAUR THUNDER HORSE ACTUALLY MAKES LIGHTNING THUNDER HORSE SEEN IN THE CITY THERE'S A CHUPACABRA NOW!!! The last one arrived just as she was looking, so they head to the Rescue Farm where the chupacabra apparently attacked. There, they find Dave harassing the workers for pictures and the bodies of six cows, all of them with a perfectly circular wound indicating they had their heart removed. In all of their wounds, bunches of dead fireflies. Still trying to understand the trail of cryptid talk, they plan an ambush on the 80ft Dinosaur, where the thunder horse has apparently been sighted. It doesn’t take long for their target to appear. It comes in from the badlands, gleefully skipping and humming as it approaches a pond close to the dinosaur. The pair is weirded out by the attitude of the supposed Thunder Horse, but even more by its appearance: it’s obvious that it’s some kind of bulky quadruped, but their whole body is covered by shoddy concealment magecraft that only reflects the surroundings instead of granting any kinds of invisibility. They engage the creature, and it suddenly sprouts wings to try and flee. It even breathes fire to protect itself, but Rider dominates the fight, eventually convincing the thing — which is clearly sentient — to stop and talk. The creature acts almost childish and easily spouts out information. It is the ride of a female Rider, who it is looking for. They have the hots for Dorothy. Their Master is male. They— BAM—A gunshot interrupts their conversation. Not aimed at any of them, it instead flies between them and the Thunder Horse, leaving a red trail in the air and then activating a spell much like the one surrounding the town. Wherever the dragon was sent to, they can’t see, and neither of them are comfortable out in the open with a gunner around. They run back to the Visitor Center to spend the night there, but feel a sudden surge of magical energy on the rescue farm. Sadly, they take too long and only get there to find more animals dead. This time, more, smaller species have been killed, and there seems to be some progression to their wounds. Most still have the very neat heart-aimed circle, but a few have more wounds or have been almost tore apart. They follow their plan to spend the night in the Visitor Center and leave early the next morning, only to find the town in upheaval as news of a murder spread through the townsfolk. The pair overhear some of their talk: “He was killed, man. It was the fucking mothman, man!”