How I Saved History (Fate/Grand Order SI)

We appear on a ship. I stumble for a moment, but then catch my balance, moving my body in time with the rhythm of the waves. I always did enjoy going out on the water.

The others all also seem to find their sea legs, and I take a second to simply bask in the sun on my back, and the salt on the breeze. The day is warm, the waves rock the ship in a soothing cadence, and we seem to be surrounded by pirates.

They've formed a ring about us, each armed to the teeth and absurdly scruffy. Interestingly, there's not a single peg-leg to be seen, but still, the black flag flying up on the mast is a bit of a dead giveaway.

"And who are you?" a woman's voice rings out. "To go appearin' out of nowhere on my Golden Hind wit' no regard for her captain?"

Wait. The Golden Hind? But that's...

I'm beginning to suspect that historians and artists might just be spectacularly bad at discerning gender.

"Captain Francis Drake, I presume?" I ask, feeling dead inside as I turn towards the voice. She's... oh dear God. How? How the ACTUAL FUCKING HELL DID ANYBODY MISTAKE HER FOR A MAN? I quit. I fucking quit. Humanity isn't worth saving, if this is a thing. I don't want to live in a world where this is a thing.

"You presume rightly, stowaway," Sir Francis fucking Drake replies, in all her busty, pink-haired, extremely feminine glory. She's even dressed like a pirate-themed stripper! What the actual fuck?

"My Queen?" a decidedly male voice asks from the captain's cabin. "What are you doing?"

A brown-haired man, clad in dark-brown trousers and a white shirt, emerges from the cabin. He looks around in irritation, and then turns back to stare at the pink-haired woman, who's looking slightly sheepish.

Wait. Is that?

"Elizabeth, I am ever your most loyal subject, but please, for the love of God, stop pretending to be me." the real Sir Francis Drake admonishes, simultaneously restoring my faith in humanity. "And, as for the rest of you-" the various deck hands all look a bit nervous. "for God's sake, don't encourage her." He makes his way towards us, before stopping and looking disapprovingly at one of his crewmembers. "Smith, what the Hell are you wearing?"

"A-an eyepatch, sir."

"I know for a fact that you have two perfectly functional eyes, Smith, so why are you wearing an eyepatch?"

"Ah-um- I-"

"It was because she thought it looked cool, wasn't it?" Smith nods. "Take it off, and I had better not see you wearing it again unless you've lost an eye, understood?" Smith nods again, already taking off his eyepatch. "Good. Because, regardless of what Elizabeth says, or whatever bizarre, unending sea we find ourselves in, we are privateers. Not pirates!"

He turns back to us. "Now who the Hell are you?"

Actually, I have the perfect answer to that question. Galahad seems to know what I'm about to say. "Flynn, no."

"We're time pirates."

"Goddammit, Flynn!"

 

"Time pirates." Drake repeats skeptically, whilst Queen Elizabeth the First looks like a kid on Christmas. "Really."

"Well, I suppose it would be more accurate to call us privateers, after a fashion." I demur. "Allow me to properly introduce myself. Charles Flynn, Chaldea's field agent."

"Chaldea?" he repeats, still skeptical.

"Right, like hell I'm actually going through this. Roman, take over." I activate the holographic projector, and then step back to let Dr. Roman explain who we are.

---​

After Roman's explanation has ended, I watch Sir Francis Drake, who's been remarkably quiet through all of this.

"You know, if I'd heard that spiel under normal circumstances, I would've taken you for every cent you were worth and then thrown you overboard."

"I take it we're in unusual circumstances, then?" I ask pointedly.

"Yes. To begin with, this sea is endless, and not on any of our charts. And that's not even counting how Elizabeth accidentally marooned me and then supposedly mugged Poseidon a week back."

"I said I was sorry!" she interjects.

"And I'm still considering your apology." he shoots back, before returning his attention to us. "So, I'm reather inclined to believe you. Especially since you speak so strangely."

Wait, what does he- Oh! The translator program is still running! They're speaking Elizabethan English, while I'm speaking American English! I'm actually surprised they can understand me at all!

"I'm glad for your trust, then, Sir Drake."

"Indeed. We're sailing for an island that some of the sailors that got trapped in this sea with us have been using as a port." he looks at me appraisingly. "You're the commander, out to save the world, right?"

"That is my current job description, yes."

"Join me in my cabin. England's a part of the world, so I suppose I'm honorbound to help you with your quest." he looks at the various Servants with mild distaste. "Leave your troop of misfits here, though. Only so much room in my cabin, and I don't want the spiky one scratching up my furniture."

Vlad, fortunately, takes the insult in stride, and he and the rest of the Servants are soon distracted from Drake's dismissal by the rapid-fire questions of an enthusiastic Elizabeth the First.

"Right then. Let's sort our strategy out, Captain Drake."

The cabin is a lot darker, but my eyes quickly adjust to the light streaming in through the portholes. Drake easily moves through the cramped space, coming to sit at a table with a mostly-blank nautical chart on it.

"So. What do we have to do to fix this?"

"Well, each Singularity is centered around a Holy Grail, as Roman explained. They tend to be full of Servants, legendary figures brought back from the dead as superhuman versions of themselves. And, perhaps most vitally, each is in some way intended to disrupt the course of human history. Usually by killing an important historical figure, or killing everyone in the Singularity."

"You think it's targeting Elizabeth." Drake infers.

"Or you." I counter. "Both of you are incredibly important figures, who helped set the course of history."

"I suppose that's a bit of a relief," Drake comments, grinning slightly, "To know that I made my mark, in the end."

"I would imagine so." I agree. "Beyond that, however, I need to know how and why Elizabeth came to travel with you."

Drake sighs. "It all ties back to Dee."

"John Dee?"

"One and the same. He feared there was a n assassination plot afoot, and, once he'd convinced Elizabeth of the threat's veracity, conjured up an angel to serve as her body double, while she went on a voyage with me, disguised by his magic." he chuckles. "I think this is the most fun she's ever had. It's good to see her relax out here. Although I do wish she'd take things a little more seriously, and also stop pretending to be me."

"No chain of command difficulties? She is your queen, after all."

"No. When I'm in her kingdom, she calls the shots, and I know that. But we're in my kingdom, now, and for all her exuberance, she remembers that." He focuses on me again. "Actually, if it's a Holy Grail you're looking for, I think we might be able to wrap this up before the day's out."

"Really?"

He rises, and heads for the door, and I follow him, ducking around the astrolabe, and lowering my head so as not to bump it against the taxidermized seagull hanging from the cabin's roof. I have a feeling that there's a story behind the seagull, but I'm a bit afraid to ask, honestly.

We emerge from the cabin, to find the entire deck has descended into a revel, with my Servants seeming to have been dragged in, to various degrees of willingness. Galahad looks exasperated, Yan Qing exceedingly drunk, Vlad's being used as the target for a ring toss game, Hassan's nowhere to be seen, Georgios looks about as irritated as Galahad, Tamamo's pigging out on roast boar, and Xuanzang's in a drinking contest against Queen Elizabeth, the two women taking drinks out of- is that the Holy Grail? Queen Elizabeth the First is using the Cup of God as her beer mug. History class did not prepare me for this day.

"Flynn?" Galahad asks, turning to look at me. "About time you showed up! I tried to keep order, but then Elizabeth pulled out the Grail, and things got out of hand."

"Aye, lass, she does tend to do that," Drake observes with a sigh, ignoring Galahad's indignant squawk at being called 'lass.' "Elizabeth! What did I tell you about using the Grail to throw parties?"

"Only on special occasions and national holidays!" she recites, before grinning wildly. "But I'm queen, so I just named today a national holiday!"

"Of course you did." Drake mutters. "Right, hand over the Grail. We need to test something."

She pouts, but does so.

"Good. What do you do with the Grails to make the singularities end, lad?" he asks, looking at me.

"We give them to Sir Galahad."

"Which one is he?"

I point to the still-fuming Knight of the Round Table behind us, which makes Sir Drake raise an eyebrow. "Galahad was a woman?"

"No." Galahad says in tones that are positively Antarctic, taking the Grail and slotting it into his shield. "I was not."

Drake blinks, then turns to me. "Long story?"

"Long story."

"Should it be doing something?" he asks, looking at the Grail still pulsing away in the shield.

"Yep. It should. I guess this isn't the Grail creating this Singularity." I sigh. "Back to the cabin to plan, then?"

"Aye." Drake observes, removing the Grail from Galahad's shield and tossing it over to Elizabeth. "You can come with, if you'd like, Galahad."

"You're not going to stop this?"

"No. Let them have their fun."

 

That night, as I lie on the deck of the ship, crewmen and Servants alike sleeping off their drink, I look up at the stars and wonder.

They're brighter out here, on the sea, brighter than I've ever seen them before. I didn't take the time to look at them, before, in Rome or France. I think I regret it a bit, now.

I trace out the constellations in my mind's eye. Here Ursa Major, there Ursa Minor, and Orion off a bit to the side, three stars still holding up his belt.

Is this what the sky looks like in the modern day, outside Chaldea? Did the wild and wondrous places of the world burn with the works of man?

Or, does life linger on, in the deep oceans, and untouched glens? Do bestial eyes stare up to the heavens, perhaps seeing those same stars we so lovingly named and set to order, vision without comprehension?

Will the world move on without us? Will, someday, another breed of beast learn to think and reason, to gaze upon the world and pick it apart, a label on every component? Will they marvel at what we left behind?

Or will cruel Father Time have erased our workings, that they may never know that they were not the first?

I look to the stars, and as I drift off, I feel so very small indeed.

---​

After arriving at the "pirate island" as Elizabeth so dramatically named it, or, as Drake called it, the 'island of thieves, butchers, and syphilis riddled whoremongers," we set about gathering information.

We needed to locate the other Servants in this Singularity, after all, and living legends tend to spawn rumors.

"The guy started screaming about lolis, and waifus, whatever the fuck those are," one particularly inebriated informant relates, clutching his mug like a lifeline. "Then, he gave us the old, join-me-or-die spiel, but when we brought out the kid we were escorting to Bermuda, he started screaming that... arcane gibberish even more, along with something about 'three Ds.'" He shudders, taking a drink to fortify himself before continuing. "I just don't understand! Why would he need more than two of the letter d in a row? Was he Welsh? That would explain the degeneracy, at least. And the tan."

"So, did you join his crew?" I ask, with a sinking feeling in my stomach. What the Hell kind of Servant is this unnamed pirate? Galahad looks equally disturbed besides me. "And did he give a name?"

"Ay, I joined. Jumped ship as soon as I could and wound up here, of course." the sailor notes. "As for a name, well, he called himself Blackbeard."

….

….


"What?"

"Blackbeard. Good name for a pirate, I suppose, even if he was a damn disgrace of one. Kept screaming gibberish and creeping on little girls."

I... I...

"Flynn?" Galahad says after I spend a minute just... staring in shock. "I know it's a letdown, but-"

I walk up to the bar and order myself the strongest drink they have in stock.

---​

"Right, we're all here, so let's pool what we learned," Drake says, looking around the taproom we rented as I stagger in, leaning on Galahad. It's just him, Elizabeth, and my Servants in here. Georgios, Xuanzang, and Tamamo weren't on the intel-gathering, so they aren't here. "Flynn, what took you so- Are you drunk?"

"Extremely so," Galahad observes, the elephants munching on his hair as he heaves me over onto a chair. Heh. That rhymes. "He took some of the revelations we uncovered... poorly."

"I'm almost afraid to ask." Drake mutters, looking at me in concern. I try to tell him that I'm fine, but it just comes out as a sort of garbly words of wordiness, so I try to pat him on the shoulder instead, which just turns into a very involved nod.

"We discovered that one of the Servants summoned to this Singularity is the legendary pirate Blackbeard."

"Really? I've never heard of him. What was he like?" Good Queen Liz asks, disco balls dangling from her pink hair.

"Supposedly, in the proper historical record, he was a legendary outlaw, who used fear tactics and portrayed himself as a fearsome, almost demonic figure in order to make ships surrender without a fight," Yan Qing speaks up, getting a surprised look from everyone else. "He purportedly hung lit fuses in his thick, black beard in order to terrify those who opposed him." He seems to notice the looks he's getting. "What? I like looking up other legendary outlaws."

"Yes, well, the Blackbeard described to us was absolutely nothing like his historical counterpart." Galahad notes. "But he might be more dangerous than he sounds. Did anyone else find rumors of Servants?"

Cursed Arm and Elizabeth both raise their hands. They then look at each other, and that's about when I pass out.

 

"Why do you do this to yourself, Master?" Xuanzang asks as she hands me a glass of water, which I gulp down greedily.

I wait for the pounding in my head to lessen before I reply. "Because sometimes, I just really, really want to hide from reality."

She gives me a disapproving look. "You really need to become less attached to your preconceptions of reality, my disciple. As the Buddha said, 'attachment is the root of all suffering.'"

"Yes, yes, Four Noble Truths, I know," I grumble. "So, where are we heading?"

I'm below decks on the Golden Hind, with Xuanzang keeping me company. Apparently she's been using her sutras to purify and disinfect the seawater, which has certainly made us a logistical miracle for Captain Drake. Not having to rely exclusively on alcohol for hydration (Elizabeth's Grail could hypothetically create fresh water, but she only ever makes alcohol) must be quite the relief.

"For an island not too far from here. Elizabeth and Hassan both turned up rumors of a group of strange pirates who operated out of there, and only struck at night. Drake decided to follow up on those, instead of looking for a needle in a haystack with Blackbeard."

"Fair enough." Alright. Time to freshen up, get out, and help.

---​

I wince as the sunlight stings my eyes, but persevere, and make my way out onto the deck.

"Flynn." Drake's tone is decidedly cool as he looks down at me from the helm. "Good to see you've recovered."

"My apologies for my unprofessional behavior, Captain Drake." I say, standing up straight and looking him in the eye. "It won't happen again."

He turns his critical gaze away with a snort. "Good."

I turn to follow his gaze and see Queen Elizabeth the First trimming the lines, side by side with the common deckhands.

Then, I make my way up the stairs to stand to the right of the helm, my hangover dogging my steps.

"I've been briefed on our destination." I inform him after standing beside him quietly for a few moments.

"I see." he doesn't turn his gaze back towards me, his eyes still fixed on the horizon as he follows his course. "Do you have any objections?"

"No. I do, however, wish to discuss possibilities."

"Very well."

"Have you encountered any fantastical, mythical creatures, during your time here?"

He's quiet for a few moments. "The island we stopped on before we met you had... some sort of jaguar creatures living on it. Great cats that walked like men."

"That confirms my suspicion. Previous Singularities have contained creatures out of legend. Wyverns, manticores, and the like. I suspect that the ability to attract long-vanished magical species is a characteristic of all Singularities."

"Seems reasonable." Drake comments, eyes not leaving the horizon.

"Thus, I believe that the strange raiders that only come at night may in fact be some breed of inhuman beast. There are many such creatures throughout mythology and folklore. Vampires, for instance, ar-"

"Is this urgent?" Drake interrupts. "Is this something I absolutely have to know this minute?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Then get the hell off my deck, Flynn. Unless you're going to grab a line and be useful, you're just wasting deck space." he orders, face stern. "I'll come down to talk you once I've finished my turn at the helm."

"Yessir." I suppose I could use some time to recover, and map out my theories a bit more.

 

We sit around the map table in Drake's cabin. It's just me, Galahad, Drake, and Elizabeth. We also called Roman in, and he's occupying the table's center in all his glowing, holographic glory.

"So. My first thought with regards to this mysterious pirate crew would be that they're vampires."

"Chaldea's scanning would have located any Dead Apostles quite easily." Roman interjects. "We actually initially justified its construction and cost by using it to locate them in the modern day, so-"

"Dead Apostles?" I interrupt. "And what do you mean 'in the modern day?'"

"Oh, right, I forgot you're a novice." Roman observes ruefully. "Basically, vampires are real, they work nothing like you think they do, and they come from the Moon."

"You're making that up."

"Nope." He grins.

"John told me much the same thing, during my initial lessons," Elizabeth offers, looking at me sympathetically. "I didn't believe him at first either."

"Right." I pinch the bridge of my nose, and start polishing my glasses. My one consolation is that Drake looks just as confused as I feel right now. "So, no vampires?"

"If they were here, they'd be spreading like the plague," Roman informs me. "Trust me. There are no vampires here."

"Right, so my second possibility would be trolls. In Norse Mythology, they turned into stone in sunlight, so raiding nocturnally would make sense for them."

"That's a possibility, I suppose." Drake notes. "of course, it's equally likely that they're ordinary humans who just take advantage of the night to take their enemies unawares. Just because the supernatural exists, doesn't mean that the mundane is impossible."

"All the same, when we raid their island, we should go in during the day, and we should go in hard and fast."

"A fair assessment, Flynn. As long as it's your Servants leading the charge, I see no issue with following your strategy." Drake rises, shaking his head. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to my bunk. I'd advise the rest of you to get some sleep as well."

He looks at us expectantly. When none of us move, he sighs, and slams his hand against the table. "That was a polite way of saying 'get out of my cabin.'"

We comply posthaste.

 

Out of my desire to avoid a repeat of what happened with Nero, I spend my time along the journey trying to get to know Queen Elizabeth.

---
​

Above us, the night sky spreads its infinite panoply of stars, heaven's countless eyes staring down at us in quiet judgement. The waves splash against the hull, and the ship creaks out the song of all old wood, as the winds carry the salt of the sea to our nostrils.​

"Anne Bonny and Mary Read, huh?" Elizabeth repeats, seemingly lost in her imaginations.

"Yeah. Some of the bravest buccaneers to ever sail beneath the black flag." Yan Qing confirms.

She asked us if we knew of any more future pirates, or of any halfway decent stories about pirates. I'm more than happy to oblige, of course, and so's Yan Qing.

"All right then, they sound interesting. Tell me about them," she commands us with a grin.

We're sitting out on the deck, a bottle of rum between us. I'm only here because I decided to invite myself to Yan Qing's nightly drinking bout with the Queen, but neither seems to mind. We're alone out here, with only the night watchman on his crow's nest and the night helmsman at the wheel for company. The rest of the crew (with the possible exception of my Servants, whose usually spend their downtime in astral form so as to not take up extra space) are belowdecks, either engaged in the gambling tournament that the officers pointedly don't acknowledge or fast asleep.

I exchange a look with Yan Qing, silently determining who holds precedence as tale-teller before we begin. Of course, we use the telepathic link to cheat, instead of holding a proper facial dialogue. At last, my position as starter of the tale is secured, and so I collect myself, absent-mindedly stroking the fox curled up in my lap, and begin.

"The first thing to be established should be that Ann Bonny and Mary Read were, or rather will be, pirates."

"Will be?" Elizabeth echoes with a skeptical eyebrow.

"They lived in the Seventeenth Century," Yan Qing offers in explanation. "Or... maybe the Sixteenth? I don't think I'll ever get a handle on you Westerners and your bizarre systems of time-keeping."

"1600s are the Seventeenth Century, Yan Qing." I offer in correction. "So, in any case, this hasn't happened yet. Won't happen in your lifetime."

"Are you allowed to tell me about this, then?" Elizabeth asks, looking worried. "You don't have to tell me anything if it'll mess with your history."

"It's fine," I assure her. "Memories vanish when a Singularity ends. As long as nothing too majorly dissimilar to the original timeline comes to pass during the Singularity, the human conception of history will repair itself."

"This is starting to sound like one of John's lessons again," she grouses, pulling out the Grail to top herself off. "Always full of strange words and ideas that leave me with a headache."

"Yes, well, my Master being a pedantic old man at heart aside," Yan Qing smoothly demurs, shooting a triumphant grin my way as he retakes the position of storyteller. "I suppose we should start with Anne Bonny. She was real firebrand and a rebel, who ran away from home and made no bones about her tendency to do as she pleased, with no regard to custom or censure."

He pauses for a drink, and I retake the lead. "She eventually ended up with a pirate captain by the name of Calico Jack Rackham, and took to the seas with him as her lover, serving on his crew as a pirate. While there, she befriended one of Calico Jack's crewmembers, one Mark Read."

Yan Qing interrupts. "Wait a second. I thought Mary went by James Kidd."

"No, that was only in..." I pause, and then round on him incredulously. "How the hell did you play Assassin's Creed Black Flag?"

"It was in the Game Room, and I was bored," Yan Qing mumbles.

"Chaldea has a Game Room? And Lev didn't blow it up?" I ask incredulously.

"Yeah. It's mostly empty these days too."

Huh. I'm going to have to check that out when I get back. Aaaaaaaaand Elizabeth's looking at us like we both just grew three heads and started rapping.

"Sorry, Your Majesty. Minor disagreement over sources." I offer up.

She arches an eyebrow. "Ah, so that's what all that gibberish in some of John's more obscure books sounds like in person."

"Yes. Scholarly debate can get a bit hard to decipher sometimes." I lie. "Anyways, Calico Jack got jealous over Anne's friendship with Mark Read, and ended up threatening Mark for making a move on his woman, but Mark defused the tension by revealing that he was, in fact, Mary Read."

Elizabeth snorts. "Wow Would never have seen that coming."

"Indeed." Yan Qing agrees, stealing back his spot as storyteller. "In any case, the two remained fast friends, and sailed with Calico Jack, supposedly both in a relationship with him," Elizabeth gasps at that. "I know, fairly scandalous, but pirates weren't much for propriety. Just doing what they wanted."

"I would never want something like that!" Elizabeth hotly contests, her face flushed in embarrassment at the prospect. "I mean, it just wouldn't be-"

"Even if it was you and two men?" Yan Qing interrupts mischievously. I shoot him a don't-get-me-involved-with-this glare.

"No!" She yelps, looking frankly disturbed at the thought. "That would be... ugh."

"If you're quite done?" I ask Yan Qing, who's looking a bit put out at how violently Elizabeth shot that down. "In any case, nothing lasts, forever, especially with regards to piracy, and eventually Calico jack's whole crew was captured by the Crown and put on trial. Calico Jack was executed, but Mary and Anne both staved off execution by claiming they were pregnant."

Elizabeth looks crestfallen at that. "Did they escape?"

"Anne did. Mary died of the poor conditions." I sigh. "Anne mostly vanishes from the historical record after that."

"So... they were only free for a little bit." Elizabeth comments, looking down at the deck. "I think I'll turn in. I don't feel like drinking anymore."

She gets up and heads off to the cabin she's bunking in, one of the tiny officers' cabins, leaving Yan Qing and I staring up at the skies.

After a few minutes, Yan Qing breaks the silence. "Did you have to tell her how it ended?"

"The difference between a happy ending and a tragic one is in where you end the story." I think I'm misquoting somebody there, but damned if I know who. "Real life... it only ever really ends once. You just keep going until you stop, and the stopping is called tragic. She asked me about Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Real people. I suppose that I could have fudged the details a bit, but in all honesty, that would just have felt like I was spitting on their graves."

"So you'd tell her a tragedy even if it wasn't what she wanted to hear?" Yan Qing asks, slumping back against the deck railing.

"I suppose." I reply neutrall, my hand absentmindedly scratching the warm bundle of fluff curled up on my lap. "She asked me to tell me about two real people, Yan. If I'm to tell the stories of the departed, I'll do it as accurately as I can, and to the best of my abilities, leaving no detail or flaw out. And someday, maybe, somebody will do the same for me."

He laughs, the sound rupturing the silence. "You're a serious one, aren't you, Master?"

"I have been so called, yes."

"I think I can respect that." He says, rising to his feet. "Get some rest, willya? You still need to sleep, after all." He dissolves into Astral Form, leaving the bottle behind.

I grab it and head down belowdecks to sleep.

 

The Island of the Night Pirates, as Elizabeth called it, quite honestly looked exactly how you'd expect an island populated by nocturnal raiders to look. Great gnarled trees sank their roots beneath the water, and rose to cast the shoreline into shadow beneath their thick canopies. Beyond, the forest continued, the thick canopy casting the forest floor into an impenetrable gloom.

"Looks like arriving during the day won't give us as much of an advantage as we thought." Drake notes, staring at the shore. The forest more closely resembles a cave than any natural environment.

"True. We still can't retreat, though. They know we're here, now. If we leave, they'll follow."

"Send in scouts." Drake orders, looking at me. "I'm not sending my men in there without an idea of what's waiting for us."

I nod. 'Cursed Arm, Yan Qing, deploy. Scout out the area under Presence Concealment.'

I get two confirmations.

"They've deployed. They'll give me their reports through our mental link."

"Fair enough. We can only wait so long, though." Drake points to the sun, which hangs brightly in the sky, about an hour away from noon. "Three hours. They'd better give us something to work with by then."

"Yessir."

---​

They only needed two.

"Okay. The report is in." I announce as I enter Drake's Cabin, where he and Elizabeth sit around the Map Table. "Looks like my guess is right. It's trolls."

Drake sighs, and I give him my best sympathetic look. "Nothing's normal anymore, is it?"

"Hey, who knows? Maybe next time it'll be a bunch of regular pirates." I offer consolingly. My sympathy only earns me a dry look from him, and a gesture for me to continue. "The trolls are being led by a Servant, a Berserker called King Erik Bloodaxe, and there are about twenty of them, at least two of which are skilled in witchcraft."

"If it was just my crew, could we win?" Drake asks. "Discounting Servant intervention."

"Elizabeth could probably fight King Erik on even footing if she integrated the Holy Grail into her body, but you'd be looking at a pyrrhic victory at best." I tell him matter-of-factly. "The trolls are all bigger and stronger than humans, and it would take a few shots from a cannon to properly bring them down. Small arms fire won't do shit. Further, you don't have any magical assets beyond Elizabeth, so you couldn't counter their Casters. Beyond that, they have the advantage of fighting defensively on their home turf, and they can see in the dark far better than any human."

Now that gets a grimace. "All right." He turns to Elizabeth, who's looking slightly pale at my analysis of how utterly boned they would be. "Can you do what he said? Integrate the Grail into your body?"

"Of course." she assures him, refocusing on the present. "I already did it, remember? On that island with all the jaguar people, to fight that crazy lady in the cat suit?"

He nods. "Okay. How would you go about leveraging your Servants?"

I grin, and then begin to explain my strategy. "Well, for starters we set the forest on fire."