2 Converging Winds

9:30 am, Friday, 13 hours before the first servant is summoned, The Middle of the Mediterranean Sea

Aaron Sylphus stood at the edge of his island home. From a distance, the lonely island appeared to be nothing more than a rock pillar sticking out of the blue Mediterranean, but closer inspection revealed columns carved into the rock and strange architecture that would remind one of a beaker; thicker at the bottom and becoming thinner and more intricate as it moved upwards. At the base of this tower, this strange mix of nature and architecture, he leaned on a railing carved from the same light-brown rock as the rest of his home. His baggy clothes and wavy, dyed blue hair, shaved in a mohawk, blowing in the cool sea breeze of early fall. He took a long draw of his cigarette as he looked out over the water, listening to the waves crash against the rock surface less than two meters below him. Lost in the peace of his tobacco, he only barely noticed the dark clouds forming on the horizon.

'That's a good sign'.

This was not sarcasm.

Flicking his nearly finished cigarette into the sea, he turned back inside the archway leading into his abode. His "home", as much as it was a home, was nothing more than a singular, circular room with no true ceiling as the tower bottle-necked into the blue sky above. There were no doors either, only empty archways, and circular holes acting as windows. Though simple, he didn't hate the aesthetic, perhaps because it was where he had lived all his life, and the magical wards that guarded the tower prevented both discovery and foul weather, meaning that the space was tranquil in every sense of the word, complete with even small trees and shrubbery on both the inside and outside the tower. In sharp contrast with the natural decor, various pieces of furniture: desks, a computer, couches and a simple bed, dotted the outside rim of the room, perhaps 50ft in diameter. In the center, slightly below the rest of the room and surrounded by metal railing, an intricate magic circle that stared up through the tower and into the sky beyond.

He cringed briefly, remembering when he had to share this space with his late father; there had been no privacy whatsoever. He had never met his mother, and assumed that his father, either having no interest in marriage or knowing it wasn't possible with his secluded lifestyle, probably knocked up some hooker, or else a non-firstborn daughter of a mage family, who were often sold off in a similar way for their magical circuits, and took the child the pass on his legacy, his 'business'.

This 'business', as it was, had existed long before himself or even his father. He had been taught that this tower, which had acted as the Sylphus family workshop for generations, could be traced all the way back to Aeolus, the king of winds. He had never believed those stories, but the connection wasn't terribly far-fetched either. The circle that laid in the center of the workshop had been designed long ago; so long that the records of its creation no longer existed. Neither he nor his father knew how it worked, only how to use it. The many concentric circles within the glyph represented various things, locations, weather patterns, temperatures, and by writing the right sigils in the right places the weather across the Mediterranean could be manipulated. Naturally, his family possessed similar magecraft, though it was better described as the manipulation of magnetic fields, and couldn't accomplish anywhere near this scale.

Politicians, mages, the wealthy, the underground, and anyone else who knew of the secret tower would contact him and pay him to alter the weather patterns for one purpose or another. It was often simple things like making clear skies for someone's vacation, or conjuring a thunderstorm for somebody else's experiment. One particularly seedy client, an Irish mage by the name of Artorias MacMannan, once had him conjure a violent thunderstorm to prevent an enemy of his from being able to fly out of the region. He had been paid handsomely for that feat, and it was a feat. The circle had weakened over the years, so now weather patterns had to be ordered about a week in advance, and the locations and scale were becoming less accurate, and more susceptible to preexisting climate patterns to the point where he would have to monitor the weather constantly to make sure that he could actually fulfill his clients' requests. It was impossible to know why the circle was weakening, though he personally attributed it to Theseus' paradox; that, through years of maintenance, the original components of the circle had been gradually replaced, and whatever magic or magecraft that originally held it together was becoming unraveled. It could also be that the circle was truly magical, and the lack of Mystery in the world was weakening what magic was left, including the circle his family was sworn to manage.

Regardless, it wouldn't be his problem for much longer. Everything was finally coming together, and the connections he made through this 'goddamned circle' were paying off all the pain this tower had caused him.

First, Artorias MacMannan contacted him, a few months ago now, and offered him a way out: a "Holy Grail War" he was hosting in his home country. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for, a chance to make the world his oyster, and to make his worth known. He knew why MacMannan had chosen him, too: Aaron was weak. All mages learned self-defense at the Clock Tower: how to use their magic circuits, even if they didn't possess combat magic, to defend themselves. Because of this, even an apprentice mage was often more dangerous than any trained combatant, especially when guns or other machines weren't involved. He, having neither combative magic nor self-defense training, was essentially a non-entity. Mix this with his lack of formal training involving anything other than the aforementioned 'goddamned circle', and he appeared as a complete non-threat. Normally, he would find this deeply offensive, and it did sting in its truth, but there was something he did have: connections, favors.

An assassin had asked him not long ago to arrange a dense fog over a magical workshop that he was attacking in the near future; the mage-assassin had magical hawk-like eyes that would grant him perfect vision even in foggy night. In exchange, he had received a box of munitions which currently sat beside his desk: an assault rifle with 300 rounds, a sniper rifle with 50 rounds, and 10 grenades, all of which were covered in wards that prevented their discovery. Another contact, a local, underground mage named Yani Iole, had arranged for a violent thunderstorm over what amounted to a 50 mile radius centered on Athens.

Yanni was an archaeologist by day, working out of Athens, which granted him special privileges. Whenever a relic of potentially magical significance was discovered, it was stored away for Clocktower analysis. If it was significant, it was stolen away as if it never existed for the preservation of Mystery, and if not, it was put on display in some museum somewhere, its location decided by politicians. This storm, which was to happen tonight, was important enough that Yanni successfully smuggled out a relic for Aaron to use in order to summon his Servant, the familiar that would fight in this war on his behalf.

In order for a 'Servant' to be summoned, a catalyst, something connected to that person, must be used, and Yanni had nabbed him just what he needed. 

He lit a fresh cigarette as he crossed the floor towards his desk and opened the black metal box sitting next to his multi-monitored computer displaying various weather maps across the region. A grim smile rose from deep within him as he looked down on the ancient, rusted blade; short enough to be called a knife.

This blade was said to be the sword of Connla, the son of the Irish Child of Light, Cu Chulainn.

That being said, he wasn't really hoping to summon Connla, he was more hoping to summon the Hound of Chulainn himself, or Connla's mother, the warrior woman Aoife. However, even if Connla was summoned, all that meant was that a potentially more powerful Saber-class servant like King Arthur, who was also connected to the region, wouldn't be. It could also provide protection if MacMannan, as Aaron suspected, was indeed trying to summon Cu Chulainn, though that could also be a weakness if servants were forced to reenact their legends, or if he summoned a Berserker....

-But his preparation didn't end there: he had spent nearly every waking moment in the last few months researching the myths and history of the Celts, as well as the interconnected Vikings, Britons, and Saxons, to keep an internal portfolio of the servants that would probably be summoned, he even neglected to return the calls and texts of his "friends", though calling them as such was a bit generous, who had all tried to contact him at various points. These people were the ones he spent time with when he ventured into the city. They would go clubbing, smoke dope, get wasted, wake up in strangers' beds, the works, but they didn't matter anymore. This wasn't some meaningless night of numbness with a morning hangover, this was a true way out, a real chance at something beyond that 'goddamned circle'. After all, even if he failed, even if he died, he couldn't see that as being any worse than the life he was living.

He removed his smartphone from his pants pocket and called his contact Jason, a black market pilot who was going to take him out of town tonight. Arriving privately meant that the other Masters couldn't track him, a fact assisted by his secluded life, and leaving in the same violent storm that he created meant that no one would be expecting him; he had gone ahead of time to place some of his unique wards on the plane, magecraft that generated a magnetic field that prevented lightning strikes and reduced air resistance, meaning that they could fly freely through the storm in spite of the severe weather.

Jason answered, his sarcastic Cockney accent bleeding through the whirring propellers in the background, "What's up, weatha' boy!?"

Unfazed, Aaron responded, "Jason, we're still good for tonight, yeah?"

"Of course we are, mate!" Though obviously calm, Jason was still having to yell so that Aaron would hear him past the plane's engine that roared in the background. "I've already contacted my people, and there'll be a guy waiting for you at the Novotel Athenes at 11 o'clock sharp, just north of the Acropolis! He'll take you to me, and once you check on your little circles its off to fuckin' Dublin! Just like I said before! Now, is that all or do you want me to crash my plane!?"

Once again, Aaron's anticipation and familiarity shielded him from Jason's berating. "Just make sure to tell me if something goes wrong, alright?"

Jason laughed heartily. "Mate! Something goes wrong and I'm dead!" He laughed again, just as before. "Just show up at the rendezvous, you twat, and I'll worry about the details, got it?!"

Jason hung up.

Aaron sighed, and he couldn't help but think about how everything was going a little too right for his comfort. He looked through an archway across the room to see his family's fairly sized fishing boat moored off the rocks. It was tied to an old, rotted, makeshift dock stretching out over the water. Even at max speed, it would take about ten hours to reach the port, meaning he would have to leave fairly soon.

Trapped in the purgatory of having nowhere to be but nothing to do, he began to contemplate how he would spend what little time he had left. A thin smile crossed his lips as a pit opened up in his chest.

The temptation was irresistible to his rebellious mind: starting with his computer, he began to throw all his old furniture into the sea.

...