GODLY AUDIENCES: SIEG

[divus]

Comments

[divus]

Then he can't have wanted it that badly, if you were able to take it.

[heartmunculus]

I had to mortally wound him over it.

The versions of him that exists will still betray anybody if he thinks he can get a grail. Even if it's imperfect.

[divus]

Those versions of him sound pretty stupid. If you're going to that far, you shouldn't settle for anything less than the best.

[heartmunculus]

He's a priest, so maybe he can purify it?

[divus]

[waves a hand dismissively]

Ugh, why go through all the trouble for something you'd have to fix?

[heartmunculus]

Holy Grails are difficult to come by. The ritual to make it takes several mage families and I'm not so sure they're going to make another one.

[divus]

...

What's the big deal, anyway? Isn't it just some fancy cup?

[heartmunculus]

The one I came here with was just a cup.

The real Holy Grail is able to grant any wish.

[divus]

How can a cup grant a wish?

[heartmunculus]

It's magic and tied to the root of all things. As long as it has enough energy it could do anything.

[divus]

So the cup is a god.

[heartmunculus]

[Uuuhhhhh.

You know what that's the closest thing I, the player, can think of.]

A little bit like that, yes.

[divus]

[i'm not even canonfamiliar to fate/ and that makes me tired]

That's really weird.

[heartmunculus]

[I promise you i'm even more tired.]

I won't disagree.

That's the reason people keep fighting over it.

[divus]

...

[squinting behind the mask, probably]

So in your world there was a contest just like this one, basically.

[heartmunculus]

It wasn't exactly like this, but it was something similar. They were in teams of two, and only the partnership that survived to the very end would get their wish.

[divus]

Wow, brutal. Did the teams come back at the end?

[heartmunculus]

No. If somebody died, that was it.

Usually you just had to kill the Spirit they summoned instead of the human. The spirits are copies of Heroic Spirits, so it's not like you're really killing a person, they could potentially be re-summoned for the next war. The idea was to minimize the amount of permanent death.

Sometimes teams will still try to kill the human partner instead. Sometimes it's easier and if you can kill the human you'll terminate the Heroic Spirit as well.

... So this place runs softer than I'm used to.

[divus]

...

[hm]

Is that why you're so... [Her voice trails off and she gestures vaguely.] You know, not freaked out about a lot of this?

[heartmunculus]

I still don't want to see the people I like die.

At the same time, a killing game like this isn't that strange to me either.

What about you? Is it odd knowing that the dead will come back?

[divus]

[She shakes her head.]

Things being fixed and people coming back after something happens to them... that's normal where I come from. So it's like, what's the big deal? It was all okay there. It will be okay here, too.

[heartmunculus]

What was it like? To live in a world where that was normal?

... You didn't react well when Cunning was close to zero followers.

[divus]

It took some getting used to. It wasn't... always normal. But it is. ...was. Before I became a god.

[It probably still is, back in that world - but she's not a god anymore.]

It's a little different for gods. Supposedly we come back, just like all of you, but like... [She makes an aggravated-sounding noise.] We swore oaths that the participants would come back, not the gods. Becoming vulnerable is supposed to make us participants, pretty much, but we're still also gods. That's why Fortune couldn't fight back.

I care about him - I don't want to take the risk that it turns out he's not a participant, if something goes wrong.

[heartmunculus]

Do you want it to be normal in the world you make too?

... I see. Did you think somebody wouldn't let him back? [Is that why that rule was there last week? Fight back?] Hm, are gods also bound by the rules that they make each week?

We're approaching the end, but I think he's going to be alright.

[divus]

I don't know... maybe. Right before I ascended...

[She hesitates.]

...before I ascended, someone important to me told me that I could serve a purpose... but I have to want it. And that's the kind of a world I want to make - the kind of world where people can achieve great things if they want it and work for it. Being able to bring people back from that sort of thing might be part of that...

[But she's not entirely sold on it. It'll be whatever the people who live in her world decide, probably.]

I don't know that it's that people wouldn't let him back, I'm just worried about there being some kind of technicality. When we're vulnerable, we're affected by both gods' rules and participants' rules. Are we participants because we can be killed? Or are we still gods since we still can't hurt the participants? If it turns out we're not participants... one of us might not come back after all.

[She doesn't know, and that's what really scares her.]

We're not supposed to be bound by the rules we make week to week, though. I think that was... Ruin's attempt at seeing if she could fight back.

[And, well.]

We all saw how that turned out. Obviously she couldn't.