Fragments of Chaldea

Ah, finally here. You’ve made it! I’ve made it! We’re done with the journey through Camelot, and so are they!

The last chapter of F/GO confirmed Mashu knew about her condition, but I had it in place well before then anyway. Come on, people. She’s been confined to a single room and underwent experiments, then gets access to a facility where people will likely talk about families and so forth. That’s not even taking into account my own vision of Chaldea to throw more cogs into the “Sherlock Holmes” loving Mashu. There’s no possible way she didn’t realize this. And so she uses it and feels it. She wants a family. And she gets one in the form of Lancelot, and a significant other who could be shoved in a bell at any moment by a single slip.

God damn you, Kiyohime. At least Mashu also gets an honorary seat at the newly made table.

Finally, Mordred gets to hear the word she always wanted to hear… regardless of how awkward of a time it is to run around Chaldea calling each other father and son. While I agree Arturia is technically the father in this case, Mordred’s whole “don’t call me a girl” and son thing is a little awkward. I’ve talked with ffure21 about it personally to get her take, and generally speaking, we believe it has to do more with the era they were born into. Sons are more sought after than daughters for obvious reasons. They also can’t be knights… but then you have Sir Gawain’s sister who apparently was and… yea it’s a mess. But I digress.

They’re finally mending the bridge, though the giant talk about why you would start a rebellion and so forth I decided to actually leave off the table. It’s no longer a matter of how that’s explained, but just that it is. The olive branches are extended, which is the part that matters. Olive branches across all lines.

Lancelot and Gawain are finally acting like comrades for once, and Gudao drops the best news possible: A catalyst for Bedivere. He’s a human, so even with magic repairing armor and cloth, I suspect anything “taken” would remain after he disintegrates. Hence, Gudao with scissors and a master plan. It works. Will this catalyst idea work with other servants? Likely now, but there may be other ways. I did it as a ncie touch to “why can X servant be automatically obtained after a singularity.” Unfortunately, Gilles and Geronimo aren’t in Chaldea so I guess I flubbed canon on that regard. Ah well, can’t have everything perfect sometimes.

Caliburn was the final piece of the puzzle. It is the icon of her kingship, and so for it to return with a memorial essence after all they’ve been through is beyond symbolic. I preferred this over Emiya and Arturia tracing Caliburn and using that. It’s symbolic in the wrong way to summon the blade and then have it shatter when defeating the Lion King. Considering the actual time it shattered she had broken the code of chivalry in a duel, that was not the point I was trying to convey. At all.

And so they finally fight together as a team. Complimenting each other very well and so forth. Not much else to really say about the ending, it’s pretty damn obvious after all. Thanks for reading all of the supplemental story guys! I hope you enjoyed the journey, and we will return you to your regularly scheduled Fragments of Chaldea within the next 48 hours.

~GhostXavier

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Reinforcements pretty much turned the tide. Was it a risky maneuver? Yes it was, but it paid off. It did have its setbacks too, so Gudao will at least try a more… stable setting to experiment with new ideas next time… hopefully.

That said, you could feasibly argue that Iskander/Gilgamesh stole the show against the Lion King. I can see that point well. But I argue they didn’t. Arturia still got one hell of a chivalric duel against the Lion King, sustaining no damage and asserting her dominance. Also, all the previous fights have been just that: Servants helping each other to defeat a common enemy that would normally be unreachable. The two kings, ironically enough, helped Arturia beat herself by sapping her energy, allowing Bedivere to land the critical blow. It’s almost poetic that the two kings who berated her were the ones to do it.

Now on to Mordred. This was the obvious turn out with everything that’s been put into place, but if you need an exact rundown of what happened, here it is. The Lion King charged Mordred using a shield to negate the damage. Gabrielle saw this but Mordred could not due to her own attack blocking her vision. She used a command seal to charge Mordred with prana (Full Health Heal in game) and the dodge spell. It worked… to an extent. With Mordred now in critical, fatal condition, Medea has to keep her sustained until the ambulance (Irisviel) arrives to pretty much guarantee survival.

One can argue it’s a cop out and a cliché move that she didn’t die. But I’d like to point out two things. First, Mordred plays a critical role and has development of her own that needs completion. This is simple and straightforward.

Now for the funny, point number 2: I can’t actually kill a servant if I wanted to.

Let me explain. In F/GO, you summon servants to aid you. You often get duplicates, which I describe as memorial essences. These memorial essences contain lost NPs and memories used to power up the original that has arrived in Chaldea. Essentially, if I kill off a servant, there’s a high chance they will just be summoned again anyway. The point of servant death is 95% moot, and if anything, it’s just an irritating time delay. “But they have to roll the servant again” you say. They do? I could have sworn they suddenly had countless catalysts lying all over Chaldea that mean something to different servants. Why not grab the skateboard from her room and place it on the altar? Quick fix. Done.

So yea. Ironic. One of the most interesting tools, character death, is out of my reach. It can literally be fixed thanks to the game’s design and my own world’s interpreted mechanics of said mobage. Now you can see why I killed off the OCs so readily and without hesitation: Because they’re someone I can kill and will actually mean something. I know what you’re thinking now. I have OCs all over Chaldea that you can relate to. Well… At least now you know I don’t exactly play nice with my own OCs. You’ve been warned, heh, but don’t expect FoC to turn into Game of Thrones.

Finally, there’s the whole symbolism and growth visualization in that final fight. I hope it really came across well. It was supposed to be a total shutdown on purpose, and I guess it’s partially contrived to make the battle happen. In the game, boom, dialogue, back to Chaldea. Here? She takes that dialogue opportunity to get some good licks in… or tries to. At least she still spills the beans for Roman to write down.

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Part 1: (Everything up to the end of the reality marble)

Part 2: (Arturia vs the Lion King)

I can just hear the cries of terror from my screen. All I’m going to say is, the clues are pretty damn obvious.

I gave Arturia and Mordred indirect moments with their argument with the Lion King. It was clear they weren’t going to make any headway, but they knew that already. Still, to see she can think so clearly and believe she is in the right… that’s something I wanted to make sure was solidified. God & goddess indifference is a hell of a thing.

I made the Lion King pretty overpowered on purpose. Let’s be honest. Compared to all the enforcer fights and even Sir Gawain, this battle was kind of anti-climactic in the story. There’s a lack of tension and pressure, and I intended to fix that. But Mordred was still able to deal plenty of damage, so it’s clear she’s not invincible. But now that she’s down, what can they manage? Next Chapter of course.

Poor Cursed Arm. You’ve done your job more than valiantly, so much so King Hassan decides to give you one final wish instead of simply letting you live. That Shaitan is some seriously crazy stuff to take down a gifted knight so easily, so to bring down so many reinforcements with ease seemed reasonable in its quest to consume.

Lancelot and Gawain finally fight side by side, albeit still with initial hesitation. Sometimes the best way to see you’re being too stubborn or abrasive is to fight yourself who is being just that.

But with the pressure and damage increasing significantly, what reinforcements does Gudao have left? It needs to be fairly game changing if they’re to allow Bedivere to land the killing blow while ensuring the defensive line doesn’t falter. All that used up Saint Quartz…

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Thank you Drake and Blackbeard for having two noble phantasm that, when combined, make for arguably one of the coolest invasion methods Chaldea can ever deploy. Seriously, it all just adds up perfectly. Blackbeard’s noble phantasm gains power for every servant on board, and Drake’s summons an armada of ships with serious destructive capability. While she doesn’t have extra cash to power her up, I’d say their combined attack is still worthy of saint quartz expenditure. I have also read that Blackbeard and Drake pull a similar method to attack one of the demon pillars in the Solomon Raid; Great stuff! Semiramis for flying fortress sometime soon maybe?

I’m sure someone is going to ask: “How did Excalibur breach the gate if the walls of Camelot could not be broken by evil deeds?”

Essentially, anything that wanted to get through the walls was considered an evil deed in the story. So anything, except for Sanzang’s NP with its quirks, attacking the walls would be considered evil. That would make them invincible. We could have a very long winded discussion about why that shouldn’t have been possible, but I guess I’ll just explain my stance with this:

For the sake of story telling, which made Sanzang’s sacrifice necessary and noble in the original, I simply made it possible that the iconic, untainted Anti-Fortress NP would be able to righteously breach the gate. 

That’s all. You can love or hate the decision, but I believe it was a better alternative than bringing in Chaldea’s own Sanzang just to masterkey the gate herself. This is Arturia and her knights’ story, not her’s. She got her “route” in the canon story.

I made King Hassan look as cool as he should. I usually am neutral to characters with edgy/dark tones (I generally like everything else) but King Hassan’s theme and design is way too spot on. Very well designed, so I thought he deserved extra justice in this chapter.

Camelot is in flames. Sphinx are breaking into the city. There’s a fleet of warships overhead… what next, Ozymandias starts shooting beams and pyramids and claim it to be from the canon story? Oh wait, it was from the canon story. Talk about one hell of a fight that got setup.

This chapter can best be described as a sort of “wish fulfillment” of sorts. Apocrypha had such epic scenes in the beginning, but then the assault on the Floating Fortress fell flat. I sought to remedy this by keeping combat escalation relatively linear, and I hope this show just that.

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I honestly thought everyone would see this coming a mile away when I was introducing the knights to those random refugees and villagers. Some had names, some did not, but the end results were the same; Extra fuel against the Lion King and an emotional rollercoaster for the knights, and hopefully you too.

Speaking of emotional waves, Mordred and Arturia finally have a talk… or at least some of it. Sheesh, Lion King, you just had to step the game up and take this entire situation seriously, didn’t you? They were only able to get a few words in thanks to you! But they were still words with meaningful impact, and the bridge between father and son is now forming for the first time (before it was kinda one sided).

Mashu and Lancelot’s friendship is put on some thin ice thanks to Galahad’s saint graph completely activating, but it’s good to see the shielder putting her foot down where she deems it necessary… in this case, keeping their relation as is since she enjoys it so much. Problem averted before it even began thanks to our ever friendly and compassionate first servant.

Which just leaves Gawain and Lancelot. Hopefully the former will find a way to forgive, but it’s going to be more difficult considering Lancelot killed his family in front of him trying to save Guinevere. Even with the scale of Mordred’s rebellion, that’s going to be a personal strike. 

Emotions are running high with no proper time to consolidate them. The Sun King’s condition for the grail means they have to join the fight, but with the discovery the lance is entering its final stage, it’s not like they had a choice to begin with. The final battle is forced upon them and Gudao has to cook up one of his ingenious plans on the spot… but what did he come up with? It better be good enough to stop the Lion King from destabilizing humanity. 

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Lol. Did you guys seriously think I wouldn’t allow Emiya to fire off probably the most iconic “Fate/ Ultimate” next to Excalibur?

Like he said himself though, it wasn’t too effective against someone who has mastered their weapon… let alone a gifted knight. But that’s why you have great allies right? The play on his Eye of the Mind skill to have contingencies to bring down Sir Mordred was something I really wanted to showcase. It’s just too bad the knight’s rampage gift allowed her to pull things the group could not properly handle. Bedivere with the ironic backstab for the rescue.

I kept a few scenes merged on purpose to help give an air of total chaos to the battlefield. I think I pulled it off best when Rashid was running from the shelter, only for the battle to continually rage around him.

Lot of servants getting shafted left and right. That justicar was no joke either, but the general disorganization after the battle entered the town played its part.

Arash going out as he did in the story. I tried to make it as epic as possible without taking up too many lines. With no Tota to watch, it fell to Lancelot to savor the final moments of the hero he came to know. Better treat that Chaldean Arash to a few drinks when you get back, bud.

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And the battle for the village has begun. And quite the battle it’s turning out to be. They seem to have the upperhand with the start of the counterattack, but then Sir Agravain pulls in the remnants of Sir Tristan’s Guerrilla force from his back pocket. In their tunnel vision to protect against the two regiments, no one detected the third (albeit weakened one). 

Astolfo and Mordred making one hell of an entrance. So does the enemy Sir Mordred for that matter. Three noble phantasms in quick succession, and with a complete disregard for her own troops for that matter. That eager to claim the enemy King Arthur’s head huh?

Servants are dropping left and right; These sentinels are not something to be taken lightly at all with their coordinated fire and large numbers… But now that everyone’s noble phantasms have drained them of magical energy, how can they combat that third regiment? Especially with this Justicar putting up a significant challenge?

At least Sir Agravain is content to watch the battle from afar, just like he did in the canon chapter… though he wasn’t all that far within the fortress dungeons to be fair. 

Emiya’s got one of his plans going again, but will it be enough to take down a gifted knight without the aid of Sir Bedivere? They will have to face Sir Mordred at full strength and without a way to fully disable her gifts and blessings, unless he has something else up his sleeves… but this is the famed GARcher, so he’s bound to have something ready with that Eye of the Mind of his… besides a condescending smirk of course.

If no one noticed by the sudden escalation of danger, the story was missing most of its “Why is Camelot so hard!?” on purpose. It begins ramping up here, and from now until the end of the story, there will only be one small break from full fledged action. They’re now going to feel the same grinding agony that we did when going through Camelot, so for those thinking they have it easy, you got your answer. You just had to wait and see as usual.

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Ozymandias makes his move, apparently none too pleased with the venture into Atlas. Things aren’t looking too good for either master now, and with the battle just over the horizon, Gudao needed all the help he could get… Poor Mashu just wants to return to help defend those she cares about, as does everyone else for that matter.

Gawain finally extends the hand of friendship to Mordred after misjudging her for so long. Guess it only took watching her reactions and a little choice words from Hans to do the trick. Maybe he’ll start acting like the valiant knight he claims himself to be from now on.

Five new defenders in the town, yet only three have been revealed. And with two regiments now bearing down on them, they could use that extra help. Speaking of extra help.

It still follows the canon story involving Sir Lancelot’s alliance, but he’s only going to lend that aid if they reach the castle. Talk about wanting your new ally to prove their metal, huh? Guess that’s the best you can do when you systematically shamed him and wiped part of his unit off the map. 

And finally, Mordred seems pleased at the idea the Lion King is being ‘tainted’ by Rhongomyniad. Now theorized as a goddess, her resolve is steeled once more. Now all she has to do is return to the village, help defend, go rescue Gabrielle’s team, break into Camelot, and defeat the Lion King… Simple, no?

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Well the Sherlock scenes were sure condensed. You’ll probably either love that or hate it, but let me make things clear: The entire transcript of Act 14 is 7,000 words roughly… That’s most of a regular chapter, and I still have other things to show. So I cut out what was not necessary to the singularity and made references to it in quick summary. Some was left out completely, yet there are still gaps where it could have been. Again, intentional. 

If you wanted to know about Solomon, Chaldea’s situation, or Atlas, than simply re-read the actual translation on Chaldeum… I didn’t want to go over what does not need to be established for this story’s continuation; That stuff is for Fate/Grand Order’s plot and world building as a whole, which is not as important for Their Guiding Light.

At least Mashu’s having a phenomenal day, besides worrying Gudao might be in serious trouble at any given moment.

Ah, finally. It seems the knights are having their own little revelations and reasons to begin mending those bridges. Mordred seems to unintentionally shown the way to fix her ties with Gawain, where as Lancelot was already willing to put any differences aside in his path to redemption. Now to see how Gawain will act upon it. Only the toughest ones remain untouched: between father and son; and two estranged knights. But at the very least, the parties are showing interest.

Nitocris didn’t aid Chaldea as openly this time… or did she? That sandstorm was a little far out of the Sun King’s territory after all.

And now the situation grew even more dire. One regiment was enough, but now there’s two. Granted the Guerilla regiments are far weaker than the standard ones, they can still cause serious damage especially when they’re in a flanking position with a “Rampage” Gifted Knight. Chaldea has only so many defenders that aren’t still healing. But who are the five reinforcements? Tune in next chapter to find out as usual.

I’ve been building up to it, but all these small and easy victories has drawn the ire of the Lion King. Camelot was a pain in the ass for us, there’s no reason it’s going to be much easier for them even with significantly more servants.

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The masters are able to exploit a rare window of opportunity to attack the fortress and find no prisoners. The attack, along with Sir Tristan’s, goes almost too well… Of course their luck can’t always pan out. They’ve now got an actual regiment from the Lion King’s army approaching them.

The lone Garrison leader puts up quite a challenge to boot, causing four servants to have to focus him to bring him down swiftly. The entire idea behind different knight enforcer classes was simple: Make a unit for purposes deemed too insignificant to send a more prana-consumptive, elite unit. Until then, they’ve fought hunters, purge knights, and vanquishers. Now there’s the sentinel, and I believe it’s fair to say he resembles those annoyingly tough knights we encountered ourselves in our Camelot run. 

And now there’s over two hundred of them in the ranks of the standard regiment that approaches the village. Gudao is feeling the pressure. Luck has run out indeed, though it seems the Lion King refuses to squander any more precious magical energy on something so ‘insignificant’. Kinda sounding like Gilgamesh, but can you blame them with the clock ticking down to incineration? Priorities.

Yes, I decided to canonize Mashu/Gudao for FoC. It’s arguably one of the more popular ships and makes a lot of sense. How they’re going to handle keeping it a secret when you have the lie detector Kiyohime and the ever observant Tamamo is anyone’s guess… It’ll be handled sometime after when we get back to Chaldea by by Christmas (our time). But can you blame him? They’ve been going through a lot together when Roman drops the news she’s in her final days. I feel after enough time and thought, that would help push him over his hesitations. 

As stated though, and proven, just because I make a relationship official, and extremely rarely at that, does not mean they start being lovey-dovey every other scene. I think it’s fairly obvious by now how I handle romance stuff: Very subtly and blend it with everything else. I don’t want to drown you guys in that sort of stuff when it’s clearly not the main focus.

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