"Massacre your family?" I repeat what my master just suggested with a smile on my face and curiosity in my eyes.
"Yeah, and any magus studying magic with them as well. I decided they don't deserve to live." (Liz)
"How come?" (???)
"They're the kinds of people who would reject an opportunity sitting right in front of them. In the previous war, Gramps was apparently in a position where he could've won. His servant had caught the last two remaining servants off guard when they were both nearly drained of prana. And what do you think the two of them do? The servant decides he doesn't want to win, while Gramps just sits around without caring as he kills himself! It's so frustrating! And then when time for the new war came around, everyone just sits around on their hands just cause Gramps tells them 'Grail wars really suck, y'know?' They just let the perfect opportunity to get their wish pass by on a whim! People who can't even take advantage of opportunities don't deserve to live." Liz looks about ready to rip her hair out as she talks about them. I grab onto her hands, move them away from her hair, and reach up to pat her head. Hair is important.
I begin thinking a little, and say "If they're magus who don't deserve to live, what about batteries?"
Liz' eyes light up, "Great idea, together they should have plenty of od after all, they'd make perfect human batteries!" We both start laughing like maniacs. I have a good master.
"Now about payment" after we stop laughing, I bring it up. My master looks confused.
"You do know you are my servant right? I can order you to do it if necessary…" (Liz)
Ignoring her words I tell her, "usually I would charge an arm and a leg, but since you're my master I'll give you a discount, just an arm!" Her look of confusion intensifies. I take another look at her arm and get desperate, grabbing her hands my eyes water a little as I look into hers, "Please, please, please! You have really nice arms, and although your right one is better, it has command seals so the left arm is enough!"
My master looks moved, under her breath she mutters "c-cute." Then she hugs me and calls out, "alright, I'll let you have my left arm!" I hug her back, and she continues, "Just, it's my first time, so try not to make it hurt… or cause me to bleed to death"
I nod. "It may not be the most up to date and it may not be enough to get a skill, but I do have surgical experience. Don't worry." I back away and give her a thumbs up. I then use my hair to cut her arm right off and stop the bleeding, as my master screams out in agony for 20 straight minutes and eventually loses consciousness.
When my master comes to, I'm cradling her arm in my own with the back of her hand up against my cheek, while giving her a lap pillow. She stares up at me with anger in her eyes, and I say "see, almost painless!" She's dumbfounded, I wonder why?
"What do you mean painless!? I thought I was gonna die!" (Liz)
"Really? I thought from the volume of your screams you were only in a little pain." (???)
"That's as loud as I can scream!" (L)
I see, now I understand my mistake. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize lung capacity was such a sore spot for you, I won't bring it up again!" (?)
Her response left me confused again, "That's not why I'm angry!" She starts flailing her arm and her stump at me. It's always funny to watch when they forget they lost an arm. "Grah… how can you be an idiot about something so weird?" She's starting to sound exasperated instead of scary, that's probably good for me. "Well, I think it's time for you to go through on your end of the deal."
After seeing me nod, Liz says "The building they occupy is nicknamed the birdhouse, it's an apartment complex that looks abandoned on the outside. It's surrounded by a powerful bounded field, apparently created in the form of an item by Gramps' servant, the previous Caster. Currently it has the effects of stopping things like drones, familiars, and normal people from entering, it and the people within it can't be sensed, seen, or heard through standard magical means from the outside, it ranks down an enemy's parameters by 1 if they don't possess good magic resistance, and it raises the parameters of allies. It was apparently more impressive in the past, but without a Caster controlling it, it can't be used to its full potential. Gramps also has various magic items and a weapon left behind by the Caster, all of these will be useful in our efforts. He's also made prosthetic arms based on a design and prototype Caster left behind, though they aren't as strong as the Caster had intended I could probably use something like that right about now." How odd, I suddenly feel a bit guilty, I wonder why. After I tell her it's not an issue, Liz keeps going, "its location and even existence isn't something that's known to the outside world's mages. Everyone there learned from texts left by the Caster and has thus had next to no contact with the rest of the magic world, and with a single exception that you happen to be talking to they're all stupidly loyal. Speaking of that one exception, here's the birdhouse's location, the trapless path through, and all the necessary keys." Liz pulls out a map of the city and points to a building in Midtown East, then a floor plan of a building with a line going through it in a very roundabout manner, and lastly a set of magic keys with labels on them.
"So, does that mean go?" (?)
"Of course." (L)
The two of us smile as I activate Presence Concealment and Sphere Boundary to be certain no servants will sense me as I cross the city, and head straight for the building.
Upon arrival I calmly walk in, loosely wrapping my hairs around every person I walk past. If any of them have nice arms I wrap my hair around their shoulders as well. When I reach the central room, it's some sort of workshop with a number of people working on an item, the one leading them is an old man with a sheathed sword at his side and a bird on his shoulder. Is that "Gramps"? I wrap all of them in my hair, and once I'm done I attack, reducing my abilities' effect. I tighten my hairs around them. Every single person in the building is smashed against the walls or floor around them, while some of them have their arms cut off and brought to me.
"There we go, as long as I stop the bleeding no one should die." As I reinspect the arms I chose, there's a noise behind me, the old man stands up and says something about servants, but to me it's drowned out by my thoughts. Did he have something that heals him? How fun! A self-repairing punching bag. I decide to try using my hair to cut him up a little for fun.
First when he charges at me I cut away the front of his foot and he trips, after it quickly heals I rip out his finger and toe nails one by one, next I smash every one of his ribs and all the bones in his limbs, then I begin skinning his legs and as he starts to puke I skin his arms and then face too. Things continue like this for a while, until I cut his arm off and he faints. At this point a few of the other magus have woken up, but they just stuck to the ground trembling in puddles of blood.
As I knock the ones who woke up back out, I look at the floor map and start retrieving tools for binding from a store room. Next I take away all their magic items and keys, bind them, and move everyone to a jail they have set up.
Using my telepathic link to Liz, I tell her that I cleaned up all the people and will be back soon. As I'm returning I hear a message from the Ruler, then from Jeanne D'arc, and then Ruler again. Something about the second message makes me tremble inside.
I tell Liz about the message after escorting her back to the birdhouse with my presence concealed. She's a bit annoyed upon hearing his Jeanne talked about banding together to fix the corrupted war, "Is she an idiot? She really thinks any of those fools could have corrupted the Grail? And she's trying to stop the wish from being granted and end the war, wasting the opportunity so many have awaited so long? We'll annihilate her, right Assassin?" Yeah, just a bit annoyed.
"Down she'll go!" Something about her leaves me scared, but her NP shouldn't be a problem with a sneak attack.
After Liz calms down, we sort through the magic items left by the previous Caster, and she tells me their names and effects. Liz takes the shoes of flight [flight for a limited time+lightening+agility up 2], a magi-mechanical arm [prosthetic arm that responds no differently from a real one+ possesses physical parameters on par with D rank], wind accelerators [uses wind magic to increase her acceleration speed], the mana bracelet [mana up 1], and one of the Lord of Rings [allows increased flow of od from master to servant+ can locate and monitor the physical, mental, and magical condition of wearers of the other rings it was made with, but with the exception of the two Lord of Rings those were destroyed by Blahster]. I took the agility shoes [agility up 1], the magic absorption ring [mana up 1+ improved mana recovery], and the other Lord of Rings. Eventually I convinced Liz to take the Sensou no Owari [strength and endurance up 1+ calming effect+ high low Regenerationn or B+ ranked wind blades] after telling her I don't use swords and threatening to never talk to her again if she didn't. That sword must not have been named by the Caster.
After that we set up base in the birdhouse. I find a good place to store my arms, framing Liz's, and organize them beautifully. Then I set up hairs in the jail so I can kill and take od from our prisoners if ever necessary.
Once she's set up her stuff in the master bedroom, helping me clean up all the bloodstains, and reconfigured the magic item controlling the bounded fields, Liz comes to warn me, "I said this place wasn't known, but in the last war two people definitely knew about this base, and two others' servants had been here, so they might know. They weren't the kinds of people who would tell anyone, but their family members could know and be participating in this war, so it's not like there's no one to watch out for. In particular there's a certain irritating, family obsessed girl a bit older than me. Her gramps was a master of that war too, he was an obsessed hunter of heroic spirits' relics. And if the news we heard was right, he's recently given her a motivational push to participate in the war. Since this place heavily dissuades people from getting involved in the Grail War, I doubt she'll come here searching for servants. But if she were to come here searching for help from Gramps it could turn out annoying."
"Umu… we can just kill her then!" (?)
"Heheh, sounds good to me" (L)
The two of us smile and Liz laughs a bit.
[@Arturia, your master should know about our base's location via Shirou, but wouldn't know that anyone there was participating, and should probably expect that they would avoid participation. Basically, you're free to attack our base, but have some good in story explanation for what made you suspicious, or some initial reason to come that doesn't involve fighting us.]