Intro

Extra! Extra! Extra from the deck! Da Vinci's Tiphone is back!

Thanks, Marine. Let Tiphone rest up in her cage until we're done writing our response.

...Scans for hazardous substances and contaminants are clear. It's a report from Da Vinci. Director Musik, Holmes, if you would.

Very well, let's take a look. ...Hmm, I see. Oho... Fascinating.

Heads of the faerie clans... Calamities... A mysterious faerie horse who goes by "Redra Bit"...

Yes, this report has proven to be yet another scintillating array of tidbits. Care to read it yourself, Goredolf?

Yes, of course. I am Chaldea's Director, after all. It's my job to stay abreast of all our latest developments.

If you'll all pipe down, Captain, Marines, and Pot-Au-Feu, I'll read it out loud so you can follow along.

All right, to start off, let's go over what we know about Faerie Britain thus far...

Faerie Britain, aka the Sixth Lostbelt, is a dangerous place where no electronic devices can function.

Fujimaru, Chaldea's resident Master and special investigations officer...

...his exclusive Servant, Mash Kyrielight...

...our technical advisor, Leonardo da Vinci, and Tristan, a Servant who was summoned out of nowhere...

...all set foot on Britain together.

However, upon entering the fae domain known as the Nameless Woods...

...they forgot their own names and memories, and ended up separated.

Fujimaru awoke in the village of Cornwall...

...where he made contact with a local faerie, Altria Caster, who would come to aid Chaldea in our mission.

Thanks to her and Tristan, Fujimaru escaped from the Nameless Woods...

...where he then met another collaborator by the name of Oberon the Faerie King...

...and began his investigation in earnest.

After reuniting with Da Vinci...

Fujimaru began gathering information on Faerie Britain, with a focus on anything that might lead him to Mash Kyrielight.

This Lostbelt's king is Morgan, a faerie who has been ruling for the past two thousand years.

The faeries who populate it are divided into six clans, and they also control the human population.

There are creatures known as mors who are the faeries' natural predators. There are also Tam Lin, faerie knights who posses the names of Heroic Spirits from Proper Human History.

There are calamities that occur every hundred years, and great calamities that occur every thousand.

And...there is a figure called the Child of Prophecy who is said to be the one who will defeat Morgan.

After undertaking a pilgrimage to ring six bells kept by each heads of the six clans...

...she will then go on to defeat Morgan, and become the true king of Britain.

Naturally, as you can imagine, Fujimaru would never let her do something like that on her own...

...so he proposed a partnership with Altria Caster without even waiting for my orders.

So now, we are obliged to lend the Child of Prophecy our full support in order to defeat our common enemy, Morgan.

In the time since our last report, Fujimaru's team met with Aurora, the head of the Wind clan... Had a run-in with Tam Lin Gawain at a ranch for keeping humans...

...fought Tam Lin Tristan at an auction house, where they also rescued Senji Muramasa, a Servant Disciple of the Foreign God...

...met with Murian, the head of the Wing clan...encountered Koyanskaya in yet another new outfit...

...and had another local faerie by the name of Gareth and a mysterious fae horse called Redra Bit join their team.

After a series of adventures, including a battle against the Dracae in the River of Tears...

...Fujimaru's team finally arrived in the city of Norwich.

There, who should they encounter but Mash Kyrielight, whom the local faeries believed to be the Child of Prophecy!

Nnn, no matter how many times I reread this part, it still doesn't make sense to me!

How did Kyrielight come to be known as the Child of Prophecy?

And what in the world is a "Habbycat"? Grr, if only this report could respond to questions!

But, since it can't, we'll just have to use our imaginations to fill in the gaps.

I'm guessing Kyrielight had her own share of troubles after escaping the Nameless Woods.

At one point, she probably ended up saving some peopleer, faeries?up in the northern part of Britain...

...which probably led them to regard her as a hero.

At any rate, the report also says that Fujimaru's team made contact with the Crypter Peperoncino, who had been laying low in Norwich.

After numerous mishaps, the calamity of Norwich finally appeared.

Fortunately, with Chaldea's help, the Child of Prophecy was able to defeat this calamity.

However...

Shortly after Mash Kyrielight had finally been reunited with Fujimaru...

...she was whisked away to parts unknown by a mysterious phenomenon, separating her from Fujimaru once again...

But, there is no time to grieve this unfortunate turn of events.

I'm certain Fujimaru would agree.

For you see, in a surprising turn of events...

He and Altria were invited to Camelothome of King Arthur in Proper Human History, and location of the evil castle in Faerie Britainby High Queen Morgan herself.

The very Morgan who possesses Rhongomyniad, a powerful spell that could be used to fight the Foreign God, and one of our main objectives in coming to this Lostbelt in the first place.

Now, Fujimaru, Da Vinci, Altria, Gareth, Muramasa, and...(sigh) Habbycat...

...have accepted Morgan's invitation, and are setting out for Camelot first thing tomorrow!

And that's all she wrote. Now, do you all feel sufficiently caught up?

Yeah, we got most of that! Thanks! Okay, we're gonna head back to our posts now!

Sounds like things are pretty crazy out there, again. I hope Mash is okay...

Not to worry. Da Vinci's report was quite upbeat, so if nothing else, we can be certain that Mash is safe.

The real problem is this "water mirror" spell of Morgan's.

According to the data enclosed along with the report, it would seem that

So those dark clouds over the city of Norwich weren't a calamity pool, but one of Morgan's spells...

It's hard to believe she was able to remotely control such a powerful spell from over a hundred kilometers away...

Between this water mirror and Rhongomyniad, it's clear she's a powerful enemy on par with any of the other Lostbelt kings we've seen.

I'm afraid I don't know much about Morgan's legend. Could I ask you to fill me in?

I only know her story from Proper Human History, but if you'll settle for that, then sure. All right, let's start with her general background.

According to British myth, she is "the good fairy of the lake"...

And in the legend of King Arthur, she's depicted as an evil witch bent on destroying him.

Morgan was the child of the Duke of Tintagel and Lady Igraine...

...and later became King Arthur's half sister after her mother married King Uther.

But despite their family ties, she grew jealous of him, and began plotting all sorts of wickedness to make his life miserable.

Some of her more notable misdeeds include stealing the sacred sword's scabbard and seducing Lancelot...

But the worst thing she did was trick King Arthur into impregnating her with Mordred, who she later sent to join the Round Table.

There were a lot of factors leading to the downfall of King Arthur's kingdom, but Morgan's definitely the one who tipped it over the edge.

Paradoxically, there are also some who believe another side of Morgan was devoted protecting King Arthur.

Those theories claim that Morgan and Viviane, the Lady of the Lake who gave King Arthur the sacred sword and protected him in death, are in fact the same person.

Sounds like her lust for power led her to become a femme fatale who ruined an entire nation.

So what's the magecraft world's consensus on her? There must be more to her story than what's commonly known.

Indeed, there is. I went through our database myself after receiving our technical advisor's first report...

There was one bombshell right out of the gate, and it relates to her birth.

It turns out Morgan was not actually the Duke of Tintagel's daughter. That was only a pretense.

She was actually the child of Lady Igraine and King Uther, the rightful king of Britain.

More stunning still, Morgan was never human.

Instead, she was a fae child, an offspring of the Isle of Britain, just like Vortigern, the Cowardly King.

But apparently, Morgan kept that fact secret, and pretended to be merely a normal human child.

Still, with King Uther as her father, and in the absence of a rightful heir, she would have been next in line for the throne.

But then, a rightful heir did appear.

Once AltriaKing Arthur was accepted by the sacred sword and unified the lords of Britain under her leadership...

Morgan stopped hiding her Mystics, that is, the power of her fae nature, and started poisoning Camelot every chance she could.

She told herself, "Altria is nothing more than a human king, made so by other humans."

"I am Britain's true king. I alone deserve to inherit its Mystics."

This conviction of hers grew to the point that she eventually came to despise her father, King Uther...

...her sister, Altria, and every human who refused to obey her. It was a major factor in her decision to try to destroy Britain.

Why did King Arthur's once noble older sister, Morgan, become Camelot's greatest enemy in her later years?

Apparently that's the answer.

Yup. Even after she had settled in as Queen of Orkney, she still plotted Camelot's downfall from afar.

Four of the Knights of the Round TableGawain, Gaheris, Gareth, and Agravainwere Morgan's children.

Mordred was... Well, I don't know if I should say this without them here...

But some experts think they were actually a homunculus Morgan created, or maybe a clone of King Arthur.

...Particulars like that aside, it sounds pretty clear that she was an enemy of King Arthur...

...and a witch who tried to destroy all of Britain.

So what about the supposed side of her that was focused on keeping King Arthur safe?

An excellent question, Captain.

There are numerous Arthurian legends, and each of them describes Morgan differently.

One claims she was King Arthur's noble sister. Another claims she was the Lady of the Lake. Yet another claims she had been a goddess of Britain since ancient times.

Needless to say, each claim would seem to rule the others out as a possibility.

Common sense would dictate that one of these theories is correct, and the others refer to someone else entirely.

But I believe that they are, in fact, all true, and that Morgan was possessed of three aspects.

Given that she was born under supernatural circumstances, I surmise that her human side...

...her fairy side, and the part of her that was Britain's own avatar all existed simultaneously.

But as these parts of herself are essentially irreconcilable within a single entity...

...I suspect each of these aspects became an independent being.

One was her human side: Altria's kind older sister, Morgan.

Another was her fairy side: Viviane, the Lady of the Lake.

And the third was the avatar of Britain: Morgan le Fay.

If we assume that to be the case, everything makes sense.

The Knights of the Round Table, then, did not bring her to justice because she was both evil and good.

Now I see. Okay, I'm convinced.

...But, hang on. Isn't Viviane another name for Nimue? The fairy who imprisoned Merlin?

Yes, it is. Morgan is both King Arthur's rival, and Merlin's greatest enemy.

Though Merlin was the one who taught Viviane magecraft, her infatuation with him eventually led to her despising him, and ultimately, sealing him away.

To do so, she employed a great Bounded Field in the form of a sarcophagus spell inscribed with the words "Only those free of sin may pass." As an incubus, not even Merlin could escape it.

It was a spell from the Age of Gods known as Garden, which could only be used by the avatar of a Mystic.

While it's still unclear how much this Lostbelt's Morgan has in common with Morgan from Proper Human History...

It would seem prudent to assume that she has more weapons at her disposal than Rhongomyniad alone.

...(Sigh). First it's the Lion King in Jerusalem, now it's Morgan in Faerie Britain, huh?

I swear, why are we always getting mixed up with Arthurian legends? I mean, I can understand it in this case since we're in Britain now and all, but still!

I mean, what're we gonna do if Albion shows up next!? I don't think even the Storm Border would have a chance!

Albion?

That is what this isle was known as in ancient times, before it came to be called Britain.

Though of course, that name also refers to something else in the magecraft world.

There, it refers to the last pure-blooded dragon: Albion.

An extinct Phantasmal who remained on the Isle of Britain even as the Age of Gods came to an end.

The creatures we call "dragons" today are simply animals who happened to acquire some of the dragon genes left behind by the dragonkin who went over to the Reverse Side of the World...

...and ended up adopting the dragons' way of life while preserving their own.

With the exception of Albion's corpse, not a single pure-blooded dragon is left on this entire planet.

Yes, that is what they say in the Clock Tower, isn't it!? Quite a romantic notion, that!

But that is all it is, and Albion is but one in a long list of fairy tales.

More importantly, it's now been twenty-eight days since we began this mission.

Thanks to the concentrated fruit essences our technical advisor has been sending along with her reports, we now have magical energy to spare, which would let us remain here past our initial fifty day estimate.

Perhaps we should advise them to stop by the Border?

...True, maybe we should. Ideally, I was hoping to complete this mission within thirty days, but that's clearly not going to happen.

That said, we still don't know exactly when the collapse is going to begin, so we shouldn't be too quick to change our time limit.

If we stick to our initial plan, we still have seventeen days left to complete the mission. Do you think Fujimaru's team can pull it off in that time frame, Holmes?

...Well, according to Da Vinci's report, it would seem the circumstances are nearly all in place.

If their meeting with High Queen Morgan ends peacefully, and she proves willing to share information about Rhongomyniad with them...

...they can then devote the rest of their time to investigating the collapse.

...And if it doesn't end peacefully?

Now that Chaldea has thrown their lot in with the Child of Prophecy, war is all but inevitable.

We already know the extent of Faerie Britain's military power.

If Altria is able to complete her pilgrimage and muster a significant anti-queen force, the battle for Camelot will be decided in a single day.

...I suspect that battle will take place in sixteen days at the earliest, just barely within our deadline.