Day Two - Heels and Wheels

[Bozwevial]

"H-hey, wait! You need to go to the hospital!" The salaryman's voice fades as Laoise slips away, easily avoiding him even though she's carrying the boy. She spots his car on her way past, its roof almost entirely crushed under the impact. It's impressive that he survived at all, but perhaps that's a side effect of Lancer's Noble Phantasm.

[Agita]

After shaking off the salaryman, Laoise takes the shortest route home she can find while staying well out of sight of any late cars or passersby. Arrived at home, she locks the door and finally allows herself a deep breath. It's not the time to relax, but she can calm down a little.

Once her heart rate has normalized, she carries Assassin's Master upstairs to her room, lies him down on her bed, and turns off the alarm. Then she rushes to the basement to fetch a prepared flower pot with earth, and some seeds. Laoise places the pot with the seeds next to the bed, near the boy's head, and drips some of her blood into the earth. Valerian leaves grow out of the soil fast enough to watch and bloom, releasing a sweet scent to fill the room. A simple sedative spell.

Laoise doesn't think the boy is likely to immediately call for Assassin on waking up, but she still knows nothing about him and is without a Servant. The spell should make his sleep deep and long, so she'll have time before he wakes up. And sleeping well will do him good, in any case.

With that placed, Laoise goes out into the garden. Aengus and Laoise planted lotuses there when they came to Japan, already in preparation for the servant they planned to summon. It takes her a while, but she retrieves a child's weight in fresh lotus roots from the pond and brings them down to the basement. A small amount she takes to the ground floor, washes them, and slices them. She boils a large pot of water and adds the sliced roots along with carrots, soaked peanuts, red dates, honey dates, and dried figs, and lets it simmer.

With the soup on the stove and a cup of coffee in her hand, she descends back down to the basement and sits down in front of the first batch of lotus roots, laid out on the permanent ritual circle. Maybe it's just that the one supporting the brunt of the ritual isn't herself, but Laoise is amazed at how simple it really is. It takes an hour, but all she has to do is tie the roots together into a human shape and provide prana as they sprout and intertwine to become an ever more convincing human likeness.

At the end of it, Laoise raises her hand towards the lifeless replica and commands it. "Lancer... rise."

Lore Create Advantage: Soothing Valerian (4d3-8+4=2)

[veekie]

The roots gurgle, as they transmuted within the vessel. Like becomes like. Water to blood. Root to flesh. The blazing spark of life arcs from Laoise's hand into the puppet, barely held together by string and mud. Leaves and petals sprout from the fresh roots, filling the air with a fresh fragrance. Details manifest on the featureless doll, glowing with a radiant light before flames erupt from within, cleansing the dross and completing the transmutation.

Lancer flips to his feet in his absurdly colorful formal garb of living leaf and petal, and an impish smirk "So soon, my Master? Miss me already?"

[Agita]

Laoise just slumps and doesn't even offer an answer, the attitude of someone who's just running on caffeine and one more thing to do. Wordlessly, she leads the way upstairs and checks on her pot of soup. "An hour and a half..." She adds a bowl of wolfberries to the stew, stirs, then puts the lid back on and leaves it to simmer again.

Taking the stuffed bear's head, Laoise sits down at the dining table to examine it, talking absently as if not really thinking about it. "I took the boy with me, but... he used a command spell, so Assassin is probably still alive. That's why I performed the ritual right away...."

She nicks one finger and presses the drop of blood into the bear's head. Considering the boy's outfit, there's a good chance that the bear is high quality. If she's lucky, the stuffing will be cotton or another plant material, the skin is more likely to be cloth. If it is, she should be able to grow a convincing enough replacement....

Crafts (4d3-8+1=4)
Two FP (invoking Botanic Magic and Quiet Observer or Second-Born Hannagáin Magus) can make that an 8 to get the job done quickly and flawlessly.

[veekie]

"Smells like food from home,",Lancer sniffs the air and licks his lips,  "As for the brat, what are you going to do with him? Nevermind the command spell, one of them got clean away, as did the other two guys, kill him, steal his spells, take him home....wait you already did that one."

Lancer takes the opportunity to sneak some soup, "Or you could aim him at Caster. We can take the two, but that watery bitch is my nemesis, can't do anything to her without using...that."

[Bozwevial]

With Laoise's guidance, the bear quickly sprouts a new body, spotless and indistinguishable from the original. Even the ribbon grows back, tying itself in a tidy bow around the stuffed animal's neck.

[Agita]

"Don't eat that... it's not done yet. Three more hours." With a sigh, Laoise lightly squeezes the bear to test it and then sets it down on the table. "There's a lot that doesn't fit. Assassin said he's not a magus, but I felt a lot of prana from him, and someone had to put up that bounded field. It could be that Assassin did, but... Anyway, if we could get Assassin to work with us, it would be a huge advantage." She yawns. "Caster was a priority target from the start... but this is a problem... If we can't get Assassin to help, I could try to find out her location and give the information to the other Servants."

[veekie]

"Try to find Rider." Lancer grimaces at the still tasteless soup, then fades into spirit form, leaving Laoise free to meet with the other Master without letting the cat out of the bag, "He's the only one the information can be trusted with."

[Agita]

Laoise responds with an uncertain noise and goes to take a shower. On getting out, she stays up long enough to see the lotus root soup done and season it just right. What's left is making sure it's safe from Lancer. "I'm going to try and sleep a bit. If there's any soup missing, you won't get any food at all for three days. Okay?" She pauses, thinking it over. "...And from now on, if I'm satisfied with your behavior at the end of the day, I'll make you some of that mapo tofu."

[veekie]

"On my honor, I will start nothing weird all day." The spectral voice pauses,"As long as there's good food on the line."

[Bozwevial]

End of Day Two.