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Post by Merlin on Apr 13, 2016 3:36:22 GMT
The Chaldea Research Division . A place crammed with workshops, labs, and all manner of rooms constructed for the sole purpose that all Magus lived for: Research, obviously. It was in the name. There were many a communal lab, those shared by many scientists and engineers working together on similar projects and collaborating on whatever the administration threw their way. Some, more fortunate and deserving Magi, even got their own personal workshops, to delve into whatever areas of interest they thought best for the organization as a whole. Those were a privileged few, usually agents that had proved themselves capable and deserving of such a reward.
And then there was Merlin.
Merlin was always of the philosophy that it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. And he obviously needed somewhere to work, but he couldn't exactly just take over an area. So instead, he made one. A pocket area, a workshop enclosed in space that "didn't exist", taken up by the foundation of the massive structure that Chaldea resided in. A fold of space, expanded with a bubble of "territory" within, inside the solid foundation and yet not really "there", almost undetectable unless you knew what you were looking for. To the outside world, the space was taken up by solid rock and foundation, and was a mere few meters in diameter. Inside, one would see a workshop expanding a far more massive area, and filled with all sorts of strange baubles and oddities. Devices floated in mid air or spun on their own, clearly medieval in design but automatic in function. Books seem to lie open, turning their own pages once every few minutes, words rearranging themselves on the pages on what seemed to be whims. And a lone broom moved of it's own accord, sweeping non-existent dust as it floated around the room performing what appeared to be an entirely unnecessary task.
Just the way he liked it.
At the moment, the wizard sat at a Desk near one end of the room, a vial of black water laying before him. Within the desk, many more vials of similar substance existed; Samples Merlin had extracted on his own mission or from the experiences of others. Some even were duplicates crafted by the wizard's own hand, to ensure he had an expansive selection of samples. Each, filled with the muck of curses and spiritual despair swirling at the center of the Fuyuki singularity, a byproduct of a destroyed world and a forgotten timeline. Each, incredibly dangerous, corrosive to servants and poisonous to masters. Each, very, very interesting.
The Magus of Flowers merely passed the vial back and forth, not doing much of anything valuable with it at the moment. At the moment he was waiting for a particular guest to arrive; Probably one of the few guests to enter his workshop, or know of it's existence, at all since Merlin was summoned. A bright enough young Magus named Rin Tohsaka. A prodigy among her peers, although that alone wasn't really enough to catch Merlin's attention. Chaldea was filled with prodigies and special cases after all. No, what had drawn Merlin's attention to the girl was the same thing that had brought her under the attention of Chaldea: She had survived the Fifth Fuyuki Grail War. But Merlin only cared because of the proximity that had placed the girl near Arturia, whom apparently she had known quite well.
At first, only a fleeting interest, the same one might feel at meeting the friend of a friend. A temporary sense of inquiry before ultimately moving along. But little Miss Tohsaka had seemed adept enough that Merlin had decided to humor her request for... what was it, instruction? Something like that. Merlin didn't really remember the details, but it had been a simple enough request, and since she was Arturia's friend, he could humor her this one request. Besides, it's not as if she was dull, and while Merlin had never particularly worked faster with others around, it was certainly more entertaining.
So he'd dropped her a set of instructions on how to reach his little personal workshop: A slip of paper with a location, and small latin chant on it. If she did it correctly, she'd be able to walk right in anytime she liked. Granted, to the rest of the world it might look like she was chanting at the wall of a hallway, and if she screwed it up, or was late, she'd end up getting a face full of stone when she tried instead, but such was life. One mustn't be late to King's Cross Station Platform, after all.
The edge of Merlin's mouth turned downwards, the faintest hint of a scowl.
Damned modern literature.
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Post by Rin Tohsaka on Apr 14, 2016 20:20:23 GMT
Merlin was certainly not the first of Rin’s many teachers. First there was her father who taught her the basics of mage craft and what it had meant to be a magus. Lord El Melloi II, who taught her keen principles of thaumatology and helped her to develop prana detection as somewhat of a sixth sense. Only just recently it was her predecessor Zeltretch himself, a true master over second magic and one of the few men to have ever achieved the so called “true magic.” Though he was known for taking in just about anyone as a pupil, few ever truly gained from the experience and were left either greatly confused or maddened by the teachings. Rin was one of the rare few who could learn anything from the old Undead Apostle, and even then it was minimal.
Alas, the prodigy now found herself under the instruction of another famous mage, the great Merlin himself who was as clever as he was tricky. Certainly one of the more interesting mages she had worked with, she was unsure whether to be annoyed by his antics or impressed by them. She had little care for fools, and even less so for those unwilling to take their work seriously. Hence why half the servants at CHLADEA were already beginning to give her headaches; Merlin however seemed to be a strange hybrid of what annoyed her and what she ultimately aspired to be one day. Hence, Rin couldn’t help but find the Mage of Flowers interesting.
Though, she was about to realize one of his first bouts of magical trickery first hand as she began to follow the instructions to get to his lab. “A pocket dimension hmm? I wouldn’t expect anything less honestly,” Rin sighed, it wasn’t that she didn’t find the idea of a pocket dimension fascinating, in fact she wouldn’t mind one of her own one day to prevent someone like her rival, Luvia Edelfelt, from going through her things. The Tohsaka Magus merely felt frustrated that nothing could truly be straightforward and simple anymore, and that things were just made even more complex than they needed to be. What a hypocrite she was indeed…
Nevertheless, Rin approached the wall where her master’s lab was supposedly located, “Ugh, well here’s hoping that a house elf isn’t trying to sabotage me,” Rin quipped with a smirk seeing as English literature references were surprisingly popular! Rin chanted the words in order to allow for her passage, though due to her accent they became botched up and instead the magus slammed right into the walk with a hard ‘thud!’
“Of course…” Rin groaned as she rubbed her head, probably having a light bruise from the collision as a result.
After quite a few attempts to get the words right, Rin was finally able to feel the tethers of reality splits like a shirt being torn at the seams and Rin was finally allowed to pass. Immediately, Rin was aghast at the sheer enormity of the magician’s lab, hers looked like a small study in comparison. Before immediately going over to the demi-demon, Rin decided to let her curiosity take hold for a while and look through the collected samples and the strange artifacts the white magus possessed. Though it was probably obvious, it did feel like the type of lab a wizard straight out of a fantasy novel might have.
“So where’s the eye of newt, virgin tears, and tongue of toad?” Rin quipped as a playful smile spread across her face, turning to the Magus of Flowers, she set her briefcase down upon a nearby table. As she approached him, her eye once more caught glimpse of the darkened liquid contained in a fragile glass vial. Merlin playing with it did send a few nervous impulses to the mage, remembering clearly what the ichor-like substance was capable of. However, Rin shook this out of her mind and returned to the topic at hand, time was brief after all!
“Well now that I’ve found your laboratory, shall we get started on researching what you have?” Rin asked as her serious expression returned and she pulled up a chair next to Merlin. Rin herself pulling a few enchanted gems from her pocket to prepare for today’s “experiments.” In the name of both science and magic, they would get to the bottom of this mystery. |
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Post by Merlin on Apr 15, 2016 3:26:47 GMT
"Mmm, third shelf on the right, under the table over there, and... probably hanging from one of the rafters."
He deadpanned a response at her quip, before shooting the young magus a coy smile. Merlin had to admit, it had been amusing watching her repeated attempts to enter his workshop. The magus had admittedly not expected her accent to cause her as much trouble as it did, but he took great joy in watching her Harry Potter her way into the wall repeatedly before getting it right. Petty, but worthwhile. It was a good introduction to the headache she'd no doubt get from Merlin's... unorthodox way of teaching. Even Nimue had been rather frustrated by his methods at times, and he'd only started giving less fucks since then. Well, metaphorically speaking anyway.
As she sat down and pulled up a chair beside him, he pretended to ignore her at first. His sole attention focused on the vial in his hand, spinning about between his fingers. An awkward silence would hang as he seemed to focus intently upon it, churning it about, swishing it back and forth, tinkering with it like a cat might play with a mouse it knew it had no chance of escape...
"Ah yes, what I have..."
Then he casually tossed it over his shoulder at her.
Reckless? Somewhat. The contents within the vial were obviously incredibly dangerous, and should Miss Tohsaka be exposed to them at all could have disastrous results if untreated. Well, not that disastrous. Natasha still seemed to be doing fine after all, slight sociopathic and gluttonous tendencies aside. That was still an experiment in progress. But there wasn't any risk of that happening here. The vial was enchanted, tightly sealed with no possibility of opening from casual forces of kinetic impact or gravity. Without specifically attempting to uncork and open it, it would remain forever shut. Not that Rin would know that, but that was part of the point.
Spinning in his seat, he turned to face her, no doubt reacting to the vial of cursed ichor he'd just flung at her over his shoulder. His elbow came up to sit on the desk, so that he might support casually leaning into his hand as he turned to look at her, chin resting in his palm.
"Mmm, that's not what we're here for today, although you're welcome to keep that if you like~."
Merlin fixed an uncomfortable gaze on her, eyes earnestly fixed on hers as he delved into them for some unknown purpose. They were probably a little too close for comfort: The desk wasn't very large, after all, so they were rather adjacent to one another. He didn't help matters by leaning in, as if inspecting some minute detail on her face. Like an eyelash that had fallen out of place. In truth it was mostly just to see how she'd react to his gaze. Most people didn't take well to being inspected so thoroughly, especially by a self-proclaimed Clairvoyant. But another part was genuinely just for shits and giggles.
"Instead, I thought I'd ask you what you're working on. A magus must always have her projects, no~?"
It was rare that the Magus of Flowers had much actual interest in others projects, but he couldn't quite afford having her assist him with his research. Not yet, not in what he was currently doing anyway. The corrupting liquid was too dangerous to bring her into his "official" experiments on yet, so instead he'd scope out her own research projects. Not that he wouldn't give her a vial and see what she did with it on her own time, of course. That was half the point, to understand how she functioned, how she reacted. See what she studied, how she functioned, how she thought. The half-blood Wizard have every intention of thoroughly understanding his would-be assistant before bringing her into the fold on his actual research...
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Post by Rin Tohsaka on Apr 16, 2016 22:29:02 GMT
Rin was surprised at how he responded to her quip, and for a moment she didn’t know whether or not she wanted to take him for his word, or assume he was just berating her for her lame joke. The coy smile he shot at her confirmed her suspicions however, the resident wizard certainly was good humored but from what Rin had seen of him so far, it was to be expected. Fingers rattling upon the wooden desk as she awaited another response from him, Rin looked around once more at the various oddities in place around the workshop.
It was indeed much different from her own, and perhaps this was due to the fact the magics the two magus were studying had very little in common. While merlin might have his samples, crystal balls and other oddities straight out of British literature; Rin’s own lab merely consisted of schematics, kaleidoscopes, and of course several gemstones to help with her studies and experiments. Of course, that didn’t mean she wasn’t fascinated with his work, in fact she was left with even more inquiries swimming in her head than when she had come in!
“Huh?” Rin dumbly replied as she heard her master fling the vial. Rin let out a distressed yelp as she scampered over to catch the vial of black liquid, a mere seven centimeters from hitting the ground.
“What were you thinking, why would you do that!?” Rin shouted at the Magus of Flowers for his careless action, despite him thoroughly warning her about the dangers of the substance beforehand. It wouldn’t take the gem mage that long to calm herself down though, it seemed she had gotten used to such antics before and was beginning to learn ranting may not be the best solution.
Regardless, Rin let out a slight sigh and turned her attention to the ichor-like substance, tipping the vial so it would flow from one end to the other. Even now, it still piqued as much curiosity in her as it did worry, she had both seen and heard of its potency, but from how it looked and felt now it seemed harmless. Turning to face the white magus once more, she shot him a glare of slight annoyance before resuming her seat across from him.
“Well, if you’re going to treat it so carelessly then maybe I should keep it!” Rin rebutted as she slid the vial into one of the many pockets upon her red coat, being very careful not to break the glass container and let all hell run loose. Though, what Merlin said next forced her to tilt her head in confusion. Though the answer did eventually become clear as Rin recalled she was merely his pupil for the time being rather than his go-to research partner. So thus she obliged and set out a few assorted gems on the table, alongside a broken hilt of a sword that seemed to have a diamond for a blade oddly enough.
“If you insist then, surely you know what second magic is and how it affects power withdrawals from other dimensions?” Rin asked despite her certainty that Merlin already knew what it was.
“Well as curses are the vixen’s specialty, and more general magecraft is yours, my work is focused on the transferal of magical energy into items as well as carrying it out from other dimensions. It’s been my family’s mage craft for generations, starting with Tohsaka Nagato and inherited from the great master Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg himself,” Rin explained though she hardly reacted from Merlin’s close distance, though most might be made uncomfortable by it.
“Currently, I’ve been trying to create a perfect replication of Zelretch’s Jewel sword that he used to defeat Brunestud, though as you can see the progress is essentially next to none…”
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Post by Merlin on Apr 17, 2016 5:53:27 GMT
She reacted about as well as he expected to his flippant dismissal of the vial in his hand. He didn't bother answering her questions as to why he would do that-- It eliminated half the fun if he actually gave people reasons as to why he did what he did. One of Merlin's favorite pass times was purposely acting overtly mysterious and cryptic, to see how people put the pieces together. It's part of why so much mystery surrounded his character in all the stories left behind. Part of it was just the natural course of events, part of it was largely by design. After all, a good mystery is often far more inspiring than the truth.
The Magus of Flowers was however interested to see what she did with the vial though. After all, as much as he may have warned her about it's contents, it was in a Magi's scholarly nature to tamper with the unknown, specifically things they probably shouldn't. Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, as they say. Or had stopped saying, in this time. Funny how the meanings of phrases changed over time, omission had changed the meaning of many sayings over the years. Granted, even the original saying came about well after Merlin's time, but it was an interesting note to him nonetheless.
"Oh~? Quite the lofty goal you've set for yourself, Miss Tohsaka..."
His eyes shifted away from her and onto the incomplete sword. A single hand reached out to touch the diamond object, fingers running across it's length as he examined it. Normally it was common courtesy for a magus to at least ask nicely before interacting with someone elses property, especially such a sensitive project, in such a way, but the half-demon's magical courtesy had never been stellar. After all, his only real magical companions had almost all been Fae to one extent or another-- And to say his relationship with any of them wasn't "complicated" would be a lie.
Still, the Magus of Flowers was somewhat impressed with her efforts. Better to dream a large, beautiful, possibly unreachable dream than resign yourself to a mundane achievable one, in his mind. And True Magic definitely was on the "dreaming large" side of things.
"Hmm, Zelretch did always have a flair for this type of thing, didn't he?"
He referred to the Dead Apostle ancestor familiarly, as one would a friend, despite having never met the man in his life. Merlin did keep track of interesting people, even in his long imprisonment in the depths of Avalon. His body had been sealed, but his Clairvoyance had not, and Merlin had watched a great many things transpire across the globe in his reprieve from it. One of the greatest, and only true, magicians of the modern age had obviously not escaped his gaze. And considering just how much he knew about some people, it wasn't uncommon for the wizard to refer to people with a certain familiarity they would obviously not share, having little to no contact with him in return.
Attention completely leaving the Japanese magus, he grasped the broken hilt of the blade and lifted it off the table, resting it across the palm of his other hand as he brought it up closer to himself to examine it in more thorough detail.
"Still, it's coming along quite nicely. Largely ornamental at this point obviously, but that's too be expected, given this is something, frankly, beyond the scope of mankind's current state."
Merlin placed the object back on the desk between them, his eyes floating back towards hers as he shifted his focus again.
"But I suppose breaking boundaries is entirely the point of human achievement, yes~?"
The wizard leaned back in his chair, pulling away from the desk and her and casually spreading his hands.
"Well, I'm not Zelretch, but I suppose I can help nudge you in the proper direction. So then, Miss Tohsaka, what seems to be holding you up~?"
Merlin's actual understanding of the blade itself was not fantastical, after all. While Merlin was an extremely talented sorcerer and magician in his own right, the Second Magic was an art specific to Zelretch and his proteges. Even should he have access to the blueprints, Merlin would never be able to craft and wield something like the Jewel Blade himself, it simply was not a magic compatible to his experience or existence. But that didn't mean his knowledge could not be applied, or similar results could not be achieved a different way. And while Merlin wouldn't dream of knowing the answer to everything, if he knew what to help her look for he'd at least know where to get started.
Research and discovery were somewhat of the point, after all.
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Post by Rin Tohsaka on Apr 23, 2016 3:49:52 GMT
The carelessness of the mage irritated the last of the Tohsaka line no doubt, but his knowledge on mage craft as well as his general tendency to do good by others was what attracted her to him. Perhaps he lacked the teaching skills of Melloi II, or the knowledge of Second Magic like Zeltretch, but his charisma is something Rin could certainly find herself to admire whilst under his tutelage. She did tilt her head however in confusion at how Merlin addressed her former mentor. Did they know each other personally or did he just hear of him somehow? The latter answer would make more sense considering Merlin’s clairvoyance and Zeltreth’s general popularity amongst the magus of this day and age. At his next reply, Rin would lift herself out of contemplation and gaze once more into the half-demon’s sea like eyes.
"Well, curiosity did kill the cat after all, but satisfaction has been known to bring it back,” Rin smiled despite the outdated nature of such a line. She didn’t even know if Merlin understood the idiom, let alone approved of what it meant. Face palming unconsciously and sighing at her fallacy, she quickly turned to see Arthur’s former advisor reaching out and fondling her blade.
This did elict a brief, “H-HEY WHAT ARE Y-” before she quickly calmed down. What did she have to be worried about after all? He was an experienced magus and had a good idea of what he was doing, and it wasn’t like it was a priceless mystic code as of yet. Nevertheless, Rin stubbornly crossed her arms and gave the troublesome magus a look of disdain, “j-just be careful with it okay?”
She was glad however that someone was taking such a keen interest into her personal research projects, even if she made far less leeway with this one than she did with others. In all honesty, she knew that someone as fantastical as Merlin would be bored stiff by all the other generic research projects she had been working on, so showing him her most far out and personal project was perhaps the best way to garner his attention and perhaps his respect. Seeing at how he observed her work with interest, it seemed that Rin’s goal had succeeded, even if the said model was a mere prototype and paled in comparison to the power of the original.
“Your offer is appreciated Merlin, however the blade is merely one path towards my ultimate goal of achieving second magic. Learning how to transfer power and look into other parallel dimensions would be more than enough to satisfy my family name,”Rin admitted though at this rate, attempting to rebuild a model Jewel Sword seemed more doable than creating a gem that could help her see into these other worlds. “I know second magic isn’t really a speciality outside of Zeltretch and my own bloodline, but anything you could do to help would be appreciated.”
With that, Rin took the Jeweled sword back, not needing to trust him with it any longer than she needed to and stuffed it right back into her satchel. Now all that remained on the table were a few gems and Rin’s red notebook, she was honestly less interested in rehashing her own mage craft for once and decided to move onto something the could both benefit from. “You’re a druid right? Shouldn’t we look into Alchemy to start off with?”
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Post by Merlin on Apr 23, 2016 22:04:34 GMT
My my, how adorable. Merlin couldn't help but find himself thoroughly amused with the young magus. She was so diametrically opposed to the Magus of Flowers, it was almost laughable how she sputtered at his actions. Where he was rather aloof, carefree and whimsical in his actions, she was clearly a very serious and motivated person. Someone with tangible dreams and desires, whom treated every second importantly. Energetic and careful, easily surprised but with her own sense of wit. A bit cautious for Merlin's taste, but he'd never minded serious women. Especially ones who seemed to think at least somewhat similarly to the way he did, if the idiom she spoke was any indication.
"Mmm, I may know a thing or two of use. But how you use them is entirely up to you~"
Merlin spoke with all the flippancy one might expect from a Magus who very rarely took any project seriously if it wasn't related to him. And those were few and far in between. He could however respect her dedication to her goal. Emulating the second magic was no easy task-- Most Magus were rather concerned with finding their own way to the route, not mimicing the path of another. In a way it was more difficult to recreate a specific miracle than inspire a new one. But her mind was set, and while she placed the mystic code away, clearly not wishing to discuss it further, she was obviously invested in the task. Merlin could respect commitment, even if he never managed to value it much himself.
"Alchemy? Ha, a decent enough topic."
The wizard flicked his wrist whimsically. One of the books Rin passed on her way to his desk seemed to float up into the air, quietly floating towards them and plopping itself down between them. The shifting and changing sentences on it's open pages seemed to snap into their proper positions, filling in the ir proper positions, like that of a jigsaw puzzle solved all at once. The incubus patted the book, somewhat delicately, as if it might fly apart from being handled too roughly.
"Mmmm, I believe these are some of my notes on the subject, although it's mostly just paraphrasing what a number of other people have written on the subject. Why spend the time writing a textbook when you can plagiarize, right? Haha~. Although I don't think I've updated it with most of that modern "Renaissance" stuff-- It's more of the ancient eastern teachings on the subject, back before us silly westerners got our hands on it. I've been meaning to compile one of these on the most recent advances in it, but who has the time, who has the time~. Feel free to take a look if you like, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter as a whole, I've somewhat lost my modern perspective."
While Merlin had kept up with the advances of magecraft in his prison, he'd grown rather lax on keeping record of them. Most of the knowledge he had recorded were things before the modern period of magecraft. Inventions and theories from the Age of the Gods, and the early stages of the Age of Man, not the more modern western takes on magecraft. Part of why he had taken an interest in tutelage at Chaldea was as a means of catching up his records after all. After all, he wasn't even the one who had compiled and written most of these books. Nimue had. One of her first tasks as his student, and quickest ways of teaching her, was having her as his scribe, to write down and compile all the records and experiments he had assembled and taken together.
If Rin was lucky, maybe he wouldn't ask her do the same, although that's certainly where his train of thought was headed.
At least, until it took a sudden course change as the Incubus decided to throw her a curve ball.
"So I hear you've run into your Servant from your previous encounter with the Holy Grail, yes?"
Subject whiplash was one of Merlin's specialties. As anyone who's ever worked with him could probably tell you, he loves working in personal inquiries in the midst of business. And by "working in", it is more akin to "suddenly sucker punching you with questions about your personal life at the most inopportune times". The incubus always found people were more honest when taken off guard, and so it was best to keep people on their toes. He planned on using the question to segway into her experience in the previous Holy Grail War, and delve into her experience on the matter. Especially given that the destroyed reality Chaldea currently faced was an alternate rendition of the same event. However, depending on her reaction he might just use it as an excuse to tease her.
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