cʜᴀʟᴅᴇᴀ pʜᴀɴᴛᴀꜱᴍ 3 [OPEN POST]

[formidable]

Premise Okeanos has been conquered a long while ago and yet there is yet ANOTHER observed irregularity in the middle of the ocean. The waters are eerily calm, the sky is clear with only a few white clouds dotting the sky. There is no land in sight. What is there instead, but a titan of a cruise ship full of luxuries such as fully furnished bedrooms, an indoor waterpark, an equipped gym for exercise and sports, an industrial kitchen with a stocked cabinet of food supplies, a ballroom, a mini-golf course, bowling... And more! The Servants of Chaldea aren't slackers by any means, but a little more fun can't hurt, right? But maybe this time around, things won't be as straightforward as it seems... "Chaldea Phantasm" is an open sandbox RP post for players to roleplay in the setting based on the mobile game, Fate Grand Order and the Fate franchise. You can play out scenarios between Master and Servant(s), Servants fighting each other, monsters, material/event grinding, AUs, etc. This post will have actual prompts that can be used at your leisure! Otherwise, feel free to write up your own scenario. A) Waku Waku Splash! A certain child king has brought it upon himself to deck out the indoor swimming pool with his own personal touches so everyone can have an exciting and enjoyable experience. There's a current pool, a wave pool, a HUGE water slide, and even pools for diving and racing. You know what this means! Swimsuits! There are rules in place to keep the peace and one of them is of particular note. "Troublemakers will be banned from Waku Waku if they are caught misbehaving, disturbing and/or be harassing our female guests. The following guests have been banned:" Archer (Gilgamesh - Adult) Archer (David) Saber (Gawain) Saber (Fergus mac Róic) Lancer (Fionn mac Cumhaill) Lancer (Cu Chulainn) Lancer (Leonidas) Berserker (Spartacus) Caster (Merlin) Caster (Mozart) Rider (Blackbeard) "Thank you and have a nice day. If you have questions for the management and want to protest your ban please talk to Heracles." Honestly, it really is up to you whether you take this ban list seriously or not... B) Fate/Grand Blue This is your more general SOL prompt. Have a walk around the beautiful cruise ship. Enjoy the blue sky! Maybe do some fishing. Raid the fridge or wait until the Kitchen Moms of Chaldea create a fantastic spread for everyone. Reenact that scene from the Titanic (except the boat sinking part). There's a karaoke machine in one of the lounges that might be fun to do! C) A Study in Ocean Blue SPECIAL EVENT A body has been found in the ballroom! The poor deceased man looks as if he was the captain of the ship. There may be several clues littered around the ballroom and into the captain's quarters that may lead to an answer! Or not? Make sure the body doesn't disappear and don't run into ghosts on the bottom floors of the ship if you try to solve this mystery! (For this prompt, feel free to write the mystery any way you want! Comedy option is that the body disappears, serious option, it was ghosts.) E) Fatal Battle!? Something sinister and monstrous this way comes. The more keen-eyed and alert Servants may have noticed a presence that has marked this oceanic singularity as a threat and it comes in the form of a titanic Water Dragon. The cruise ship trembles as the beast approaches, angry that its territory has been invaded. Hopefully, our more skilled Riders will take the wheel and navigate around it safely, but it's up to you to subdue the dragon and try not to get swallowed whole, there's a whole other level inside and maybe valuable mats and a Grail!?. Good luck with your Boss Battle! Basic Guidlines ➢ In the subject line or in your opening thread, please say if you're opting in or out for spoilers! ➢ If you have a fanmade Servant, please try to link to information or have a quick summary of your character! Likewise with cross-canon characters with a Fate/AU. ➢ Be kind and courteous to one another about spoilers, please! ➢ If stuff gets mildly NSFW or something just mark your threads and we'll be good to go! ➢ A high seas adventure...?

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[nozart]

[ Is it strange to look at a Voided entity and be reminded of a child? Maybe it's the methodical seriousness with which Ain tackles the task, but it makes Mozart heave a soft, semi-exasperated chuckle. ]

Hmm, not bad. A little louder towards the end, if you'd please.

[ He plays the notes again. This time with deliberately exaggerated emotion, and a vocal accompaniment— a gentle, playful hum. ]

You might not know anything about music, but you've heard sounds, haven't you? Crescendos and pianissimos, heartbeats in andante. The one-two pound of footsteps in allegro— have you ever been inspired?

[abgrund]

[ Perhaps they are children - the creatures of the void who do not immediately seek to destroy all that they lay their tendrils on; thrust into a world that they do not understand, they learn much like human spawn.

Of course, his situation is a little different. He once inhabited a body that was much more human, before the void taint consumed him from within. What little he remembers of music is blackened by a pallid haze, as if he was watching someone else's life.

What does he hear? The sound of Mozart's voice, the tinkling of piano keys in his (slightly improved) imitation of what the Caster has played... and the song of the void echoing from his own deadened heart. ]

... I can copy what is shown to me.

[ Which is. Technically not inspiration, but he isn't sure of what else to say. ]

I have watched people sing. But I cannot sing myself.

[nozart]

[ Mozart lives life like a hurricane. Thirty-odd years of his life from country to country, learning languages and swapping jackets to perform for kings and nobles. Sitting still has always been as much of a challenge as writing an opera overnight; if given the choice, he'd use his own blood for ink if the latter ran out.

Despite the certainty of that truth, Mozart exercises patience here. Perched on his piano bench, almost knocking knees with an entity that might as well be a demi-god. ]

'Cannot'.

[ He repeats, sing-song. It might sound patronizing, if not for the curiosity that softens the half-grin on his face. ]

Well, that's just historically speaking. [ His fingers dance over the piano keys, drawing scales and arpeggios in the same way that people breathe. ] Now, the better question— have you ever wanted to sing?

[abgrund]

[ The Foreigner closes his eye, grey lashes shimmering with an unnatural, almost plastic sheen. Mozart is willing to wait for him, which makes it easer to sift through his memories and find a shard of an answer.

He sees the trees of Elysion, the chorus of a whole village of robots, singing towards the newly-rising sun; the voices of people whose faces he can no longer see, laughing and fading into the warmth of a noonday spring. Then the glitter of Elrianode itself, a city whose sky was bisected cleanly in half by day and night. He had watched as 「 they 」walked towards the light, and found himself unable to follow them.

Even before he manifested, someone had signed his existence away for him. ]

... I did.

[ Once upon a time, he had a wish that he too could be human like them. ]

[nozart]

[ "I did". That's far better than a 'never', and far more heartening than a 'no'— it implies that somewhere in that hollowed-out heart, the Foreigner knows what it means to let his soul sing.

It feels vindicating, no matter how selfish that conclusion seems. Mozart's higher power has always been two things— music and (redacted)— and there's a certain level of satisfaction in knowing that at least one of them is universal.

As artificial as the Foreigner is, there was a part of him that longed for something. That's what music is all about, after all. ]

Bravo. That's all I needed to know.

[ A chuckle, and Mozart beams at his 'pupil'. This poor, fractured version of a pre-existing whole. ]

Now, think of what that means to you, and play me a tune.

[abgrund]

[ These are not questions that have been asked of him before. The clause of erasure has been written into his very form ever since his creation, and thus his companions never offered the query to him. A smile, a flower, a gesture of kindness - these were things that they gave to him freely, without expectation of anything in return. And it was because of them that he still persists beyond his death; bequeathing to him a flame of hope that had burned into a smoldering coal.

Yet, it would not die out.

The Foreigner takes his hand off the keyboard for a few seconds, holding it out in front of him in a moment of deliberation. Then he places both hands on the keys, and his form begins to bleach white - his hollow shell peeling away to reveal a deeper, more skeletal form.

(His eyes are now green-in-black, a negative image of what had existed before; just as how the vessels of Foreigners were humanity turned inside out.)

He does not play the piano. Instead, the music flows from the hole that takes the place of his heart; a rolling sound that resonates with one's body rather than ears. It could be compared to a foghorn, if a foghorn had sounded in the abyss, accompanied by whispers and sensations that brush against a person's mind. If he had been a less considerate Foreigner, the song of the void would have eaten its listeners' souls.

However, Mozart is a musical genius, so he would hear of what lay beyond its call. The song had been transposed by eldritch influence, yet a melody still persists beneath. It paints visions of an elegant city, two halves coexisting as a harmonious whole; light with dark, hope with despair, a verdant realm and the Void that was its underside.

Perhaps the Caster would understand - the world needed balance. For each soul that walks the light of the sun, another would be condemned to shadow. ]

[nozart]

[ Foreigner shifts, and the resulting outline of his vessel reminds Mozart of a harp carved in whale-bone— not a single curve or bend out of place. Flick him with a thumb and forefinger, and Ain might sound like the bottom of an endless ocean.

The operative word there is might. Any speculation as to the music of the void is replaced by the music itself, which prompts Mozart to still on his bench, posture raised and attentive.

Smiling eyes calm to moderation, and the sharp angles of his face, which are usually tempered by his congeniality, take on a new focus. When it comes to sounds and melodies, Mozart doesn't compromise; after all, he's the kind of person that would gleefully have taken a detour into Hell if only to hear what kind of music Satan preferred.

Ain's song rattles him, inside and out. What he wants more than anything now is to grab pen and parchment, to turn himself inside out trying to commit this cadence to memory.

Of course, his resources are limited, so what he does instead is let his fingers fly over the piano in accompaniment. Low and crawling, mixing funereal dirges with the trill of morning birds. ]

[abgrund]

[ The song flows on, melody dipping in and out of itself; twisting in a manner that only the void would be capable of. Unhooked from time, disregarding of time, contrasting strains weaving into each other to form a stream of impressions that press down on Mozart from all directions. Lucky that they are the only ones in this room; Ain is careful to restrict the song so that it would not hurt anyone who was not meant to receive it.

He sees a flower of pure white, floating within a glass orb and pressed into the hands of a red-haired youth; the smile of a lady with pointed ears as she pats the head of a girl in purple. A man leans against a tree in the distance, his distinctively mechanical arm lying in the grass as he speaks with a younger girl and her fox companion. Then comes a youth who looked no older than their Master, trying to calm down a boy with a rowdy shock of white hair. One thing united them in their separate scenes - they were happy, and that there had been a small, lingering orb of light watching them.

Shadowy hands grasp at the song, eventually washing vivid impressions into a black tide. The abyss deepens, a fog that drowns out all thought. And yet... pinpoints of light flicker in the darkness, blinking briefly into existence before winking out.


「 Even at the end of the abyss... you can see stars. 」


Not his, of course. They are out of reach, but they exist nevertheless. And perhaps... this is all he could ever have.






Should Mozart drag his perception back from the fading requiem, he would find that Ain had gone completely still. Eyes appear all over his body, though they carry only a half-lidded appearance. No piercing gaze, no mist spurting from gaps torn into reality - none of that at all. ]

[nozart]

[ Oh, there it is— it's heartbreak and acceptance, acquiescence and grief. Goodbyes stitched to hellos, the promise of an ever-expanding universe that leaves you feeling cold, small, insignificant, and miraculous.

Ain's music is if binaries could sing. If the complex maze of 1s and 0s learned what it is to emote beyond their pragmatic duty; if the dispassionate concept of 'fate' could understand loneliness.

("This, too, will pass.")

Mozart rarely cries for anything, but his heart is still a child's heart when it comes to music. He feels his vision cloud with tears, white-hot and ice-cold, and he can't help but laugh through them. Exhilarated. ]

—Oh, so that's what it sounds like.

[ His hands lift from ebony and ivory, and come together in genuine, boneheaded applause. Even Foreigner's changed form doesn't faze him, too busy as he is with littering drops of moisture on the fabric of his pants. ]

Bravo, maestro. Mm, mm! You lied to me, you scoundrel!

[abgrund]

[ Foreigner doesn't answer immediately, his awareness still lost in the depths of the darkness that memory drew out of him. To see time not in human terms, but the beating of a heart millions of years old, even older than the sun, the stars, and those that had been turned to ash to birth their radiance. The far edge of time, where existence itself lose meaning - what is a single moment to an entity unhooked from reality itself?

And yet, some part of him still yearns. Some small fragment of humanity, a stubborn wish that clung to light despite the black tide, engraved into his spirit and immortalized for all eternity. Perhaps, the humans remembered him, and in this way gave him a spark to illuminate the journey that pushed him away from them.

The silence stretches on as the void song sequesters itself back into the hole in his chest, leaving wisps of shadow around his form. When he speaks, his voice resounds on two levels - against Mozart's ears, and also against his sternum; heartfelt words. ]

This was what... they showed me. Their song, given to me.

[nozart]

[ Servants are, in essence, like looking into a kaleidoscope. They're a colorful composite of stories and events, given credence through hearsay and wishful thinking; they're abstract concepts of an unrealized wish to begin with, which makes Foreigner's Servant designation even more distressing.

A ghost of a ghost. A being twice removed, who still has a voice that can move a musician to tears. Tragic. ]

You're awfully humble for someone who made a genius cry.

[ He admits it freely, with lashes still blinking moisture away from his eyes. Nonchalant and breezy, Mozart doesn't bother wiping his face— it seems a pity to do so. ]

But, think of it this way. They entrusted that tune to you, and you kept it. Against all odds, you took it upon yourself to carry their music.

Isn't that wonderful, in its own way? I'm thanking you for it, honestly speaking.

[abgrund]

[ In one world, the angel grew weary of humanity and refined his wings into blades.

In another world, the angel came to understood humanity and took the wind as his form, so he may be by their side.

In the last world, the angel bore all the misfortune that would have befallen the other two, cast into the abyss for a crime he did not commit nor understand. It was humans who gave him a second chance, not the divinity who created him. ]

... you would think so?

[ Humans are strange. So fragile, so transient. Some seek to preserve themselves beyond their lifetimes, but that would be undone by the flow of time. All roads led to the abyss, not Rome - for Rome itself would fall into the darkness in the end. Some simply accepted the futility of their struggle and threw themselves into the flames.

And some... danced with it, despite everything. Those who would shine for the briefest of moments, they were the light in the abyss. ]

Then..... thank you, too. For giving me your time.


[ The eyes scattered over his body begin to close, his form returning to a less skeletal one. It still remains to be seen if Foreigner can truly smile, but the invisible fog that smothers him seems to lighten just a little. ]