William’s Relationship Chart

William Dafoe and Hassan of the Spider’s Web

Staring back into the mirror his Assassin holds aloft, William looks into a face that’s barely his anymore. Does he even remember what his face looks like? Lie enough times and it becomes true, they say. He’s lied enough times that there must be nothing about him that’s even true anymore. The frown on his face deepens, and William looks past the glassware at Hassan instead. A squad of spiders stares back at him from their nests in her hair. William certainly could have asked for a worse spirit. Servant, whatever they are. Powerful people are annoyingly smug and their paper-skin ego can be dangerous. Hassan’s got the smug, but she’s not smug enough to be untenable and she hasn’t stabbed him for backtalking her. William can respect that.

"Prideful. My Master. While ignorant in the ways of Magecraft, his skills are acceptable and his magical energy is unparalleled. Your wardrobe was quite dreadful before summoning me, however..." a twinge of irritation twitches William’s brow at the backhanded compliment, and he looks away. Maybe he was too quick to forgive.

"Redundant.,” she continues without waiting for comment. “I don't need to inform you of your weaknesses, Master. I believe there is only a single other Master in this war you could reliably defeat in combat. Your advantage is magical energy - don't forget that. I can fight far beyond my capabilities, and we need not stay in Oxford and receive support from the Grail. And it is not normal for my Zabaniya to be deployed so long and frequently..."

Wearing a smirk, William boasts, “Give me the right tools and I might surprise you. Nothing alive that can’t die to the right weapon.” Looking down at his piece, he adds, “Especially the right bullet.”

“Dramatic. Sigh. I will do my best to keep you safe, my prideful Master.”

It may be a fool’s errand to trust an assassin with your back, but William’s had worse people at his back before. Despite her cold, calculating schemes and all the oddities, he finds he does trust her.




That night, a cool breeze around William’s ankles clues him in that Assassin has slipped into a window downstairs. Doing her nightly patrols, he imagines. Burning the midnight oil- his. This far out from the Grail’s site, it’s apparently all on his shoulders to keep her fueled. Keeps things comfortable.

Taking one last pin, William sticks it into the board, and wraps it in red twine. Intentionally heel-clicking footsteps skitter up behind him. “Nagging. You should get some sleep, Master. Our distant lair affords you safety that you should take advantage of.”

“And a right lot of free time,” he steps to the side and presents the large, flappable cork-board to her. It features the many sketches and photographs she’s compiled of the War’s participants, and of Oxford, connected by crimson lines of yarn. “I’ve been doing some thinking. Putting my noggin’ into action,” he taps the side of his head. “So here’s some of my thoughts…”

Masters

Ying Yue le Fay

The first picture he draws attention to is the noblewoman, real fancy looking. William thought the Brits did away with the monarchy and nobles a long time ago, but really they’ve just moved far enough ahead that the merchants and factory oligarchs are the new nobility. That’s not all, though. William can feel the deep connection between she and her clothes- appearances are important to her. The etiquette, the attire. Wizard women like to LARP, it would seem.

She’s got a nice rack and a slim waist, those are the biggest compliments William can spare her. There’s just an itch in him that doesn’t like her face. The way she holds herself. That upturned nose that says she’s better than you. Maybe it’s all in his head, fictional images conjured by sleep deprivation and tea with far too little caffeine in it.

More importantly, he can feel the connection between her and her eyes. Or just eyes. Eyes and her. Circles in red pen are drawn around her eyes. “If someone has too much vision, you need to distract them before you can find an angle,” William suggests, bringing his hands up into a picture frame. “No matter how well someone can see, they can only see so much.” An overly optimistic perspective, maybe. But in his experience there’s always a blind spot somewhere. “If you can’t find something physical, find an emotional weak point. Get ‘em mad. Make them stop thinking about how to win. That’s the trick to make a genius lose.”

Griffith le Fay

The blue-haired boy in Hassan’s sketch didn’t look like much to William earlier, when he first took a look. In spite of his fancy clothes, the kid looks like he doesn’t quite fit in them, doesn’t belong. Not that the kid looks rough. William could probably have folded the kid in half himself, in his estimation. Then his mind drew its little red threads, draping connections where connections are due. There’s a little birdie that links them, he and the boy.

Something in the kid’s face reaches out, optimistic, like there’s actually something good in the world out there waiting for him. Waiting for all of them. Just an olive branch, reaching out into the night as if the other half will connect all on its own. It’s weirdly annoying. William would never admit it, but he envies that sort of naivete. The power to look at the world and see the good in it. “Look at him, he’d never even consider we might stab him in the back,” William reasons to Hassan. “Don’t you worry ‘bout him. He’s not a threat. Just a lost little puppy dog looking for a home.”

Sabrina Sabanto

Two Servants. Their images connect in the middle, a V-shape with the woman at the center. William sneers. “How’d she manage to pull that off, I wonder.” He has one guess. Beside the images is a weather report, a lightning storm. Hit just before the mechanical grandpa and the duelist started to be spotted in the streets. William’s information network isn’t the most reliable, just the folks in shelters from the war who he drops off food for now and then. Steal from the rich and give to the poor. Here I am pretending to be Robin Hood, now. “She used the storm somehow to help her summon them. Clever girl.”

There’s obviously a big threat there. Still, despite Hassan’s eagerness to cut her down, William can’t help but feel pity of his own for the girl. “She’s some sort of golem, then?” Slowly, the sneer fades. Somebody who never got to choose their lot in life. There’s a lot of things William hates, but for all of it there’s a part of him that can look into the eyes of something inhuman and see the person there. And he’s met things a lot more inhuman than her, looked into their eyes and found common ground there, before he ever had to deal with wizards and spirits.

When his eyes trail to Hassan and recall the sympathy she’d pushed down, William recalls his visions of her past. She sees herself in the golem-thing. Someone alone in the world who never had the power to choose. “You shouldn’t second guess your instincts and fall back on the killing,” he says, before the bitter old man can creep back in. “Just because it gets practiced and easy.” Flicking his revolver open, he spins the chambers with a thumb, eye trailing after the empty one. Always keep an empty chamber. Basic firearm safety. “I’m not a wizard. She’s not a wizard. We don’t need to play by wizard rules.”

Jacob Davies

There’s old newspapers here, tacked on below one of Hassan’s sketches. A dead boy, drained of blood. William feels the connection deeper than just a family resemblance. A dead brother. There’s a funhouse mirror in this piece of paper, and when William picks it off the board to look closer he can see a reflection of himself.

They are similar, but not for the reasons Assassin can see- both homeless, on the street. “Somebody took somebody important to him,” again, that weak spot coming around. William isn’t sure he really understands it yet. “I want to meet him.”

“Concern. You see too many allies in this list of enemies, Master,” his Servant warns, her hair tensely wringing itself against the foundations of the factory. William is learning it betrays her emotions more than her face or body language do. “Warning. When the prize at the end of this war is your deepest desire, never doubt that every foe will kill to see it done. Remember that weight is on every alliance you forge.”

Opening his mouth, William is close to admitting he doesn’t care too much for winning the war. In the end, he closes it. Just because he has nothing to wish for doesn’t mean Hassan feels the same. And she’s certainly willing to kill anything that’s an obstacle.

The Herald of the New World

For the third time, William stares into a mirror. He scowls at the man who displays all the promise of what he could have been, in the worst possible way. “I think you do,” he interrupts, earning a tilt of Hassan’s head. An abrupt continuation of conversation, attached to her insinuations from earlier. It had been playing over and over in William’s. He clarifies, “Know where his Servant is.” William clicks the cylinder back into place. “Inside?” he posits.

Folding her arms behind her back, the spirit lifts her head. “Musing. Perhaps, Master. But do not assume he our only concern. Even if they are joined in body, they are not alone.”

A town full of monsters, hunting people down, pushing them towards artifacts of power that cycle into more conflict. Normal people. People who have nothing to do with this secret war. Fruits falling from a forbidden tree in the middle of a garden, tempting them into something more if only they can pry it from those who have it through violence. William has heard plenty about this Herald in his own investigations, and seen his handiwork. “You’ll be happy to hear,” he says, coldly, “This one I won’t mind putting a bullet in.”

Maybe it’ll be justice, or maybe a mercy killing.

Kai Revan

Frayed yarns stretch in every direction, tangled in bafflement. This creature’s loyalty to the Church that holds its leash is far from concrete. William furrows his brow at the dead priest. Dead priest, dead apostle, so many dead things crawling around. “I don’t know what his game is,” the wily old conman can smell a con a mile away, but this isn’t that. The connections aren’t being faked, they’re just… blind. Like a brain cut in two. One eye can’t see what the other is seeing, one hand can’t feel what the other is touching. “You say to ignore him, but I don’t know that’s such a good idea.”

Michele de Saint-Meran

The most obvious connection, the closest to the dead man, is a nun. Of all the things William expected to fight in this war, that’s not one of them. Thumb flicking the hammer up and then down, William twists the cylinder back to the empty chamber after the slip of idle hands and stows the firearm. “If God is real, I’m not so sure I want to shoot a nun.”

Hassan makes a noise. “Derisive. The infidels are not the true faithful. They poison minds with false teachings. She shall be corrected, inshallah.”

“Right.” William wisely opts not to discuss this further. Besides, he’s seen her rain fire and brimstone on hordes of the freaks swarming Oxford. A defenseless little old lady in a habit she is not.

Abel

The first man born on Earth. Almost all the connections to be drawn on the board are long gone. Thought he was supposed to be the good brother. Truth be told, William has nothing to add beyond Hassan’s thoughts. This is over his head.

Judas Iscariot

It’s a tenuous thread, but one connected to Abel all the same. Looking at the ancient images of the first man and then this bloody-handed bastard, William finds all sorts of questions popping into mind. If the infidels are infidels, how is their messiah real? Messiah has to be real if the betrayer is real. How does this fit into Hassan’s religious narrative?

Not that William doubts this is the real Judas. This image carries a sense of snipped threads so numerous that they are uncountable. This creature has cut every connection it has ever forged. He is hated by everything that lives and knows him. That’s a kind of connection too. A new bond for every frayed strand, a pact of mutual disdain. And one thread turned inward, wrapped around Judas’ own throat- a hungry noose. There is perhaps no one who hates him more than himself.

“He’s got the look of a desperate man,” William notes. “Nobody easier to con than a desperate man.” And nobody more dangerous.

Giuletta di Rosa

This is the second nun they’ve looked at tonight, but she’s definitely no woman of God. William ogles the dangling halves of her knockers drooping out of her chopped up habit. At first, William had refuted Hassan’s idea of an alliance. “A crazy vampire seductress is the last person I’d trust into my bed in this war,” despite his lower regions disagreeing vehemently. “… No, actually. Literally Judas would be the last. But she’s down there.”

Now, with a few hours’ thinking time under his belt, he finds himself reconsidering with a clearer head. “If she actually believes what she’s selling, and I think she does,” he’d studied all the little loops dancing back into her eyes for a long time. Whatever it is she’s holding onto from her past loves, the threads were never severed. No betrayal. “We might be able to work with that.”

Homura Masafumi

A new photograph has been added to the board, a framed staff photo from some Japanese sushi restaurant in Oxford. A rarity still, restaurants. Pretty run down place, from what William can tell. It tried to sell itself to the rich as a taste of travel and adventure, but it ended up a curiosity only appreciated by the scholarly university staff and small population of foreigners.

“There’s something about this guy,” William says, introducing him to Hassan, “He’s part of this, I can feel it. And he’s got a powerful patron backing him.” A well-hidden one. William can’t tell where the trail of their attachment goes, no matter how far he tugs the string. He’d given up eventually, worried what might tug back.

Only one word comes to mind looking at the moppy head of the fish-butcher. Rigger.

Benjamin Jowett

A very poorly done sketch of a very British looking gentleman sits among the others, clearly William’s work and not Hassan’s. He had copied it, for a generous interpretation of copy, from a faculty portrait in one of the University buildings. Though it was not William himself who gathered the information about this individual. It was his generous benefactor.

“Best to leave him to his business for now and not look like a threat worthy of his attention,” he advises Assassin. “He’s got eyes and ears all over Oxford.” The buildings themselves have eyes, or so the crow claimed. “Even we can’t hide from him.”

The Delightful Godfrey Children

Strings lead down from one poor drawing to another, this one of a collection of creepy looking nearly identical children in the middle of a corn field. That part is artistic interpretation. Behind them is another man, in red. “This bunch are living in a University owned building, they look like rich brats. I think they’re in an alliance with the wig-head.” As a general rule, William prefers not to shoot children. He makes an exception for magical freak children. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. “We’ll talk about the other guy later.”

Cordelia Magdall

Another crude drawing, this time of a woman with exaggerated breasts standing in front of trees that look like they were drawn by a child. Like little sprigs of landscape broccoli. There are two double dead apostles on the ground near her with stakes in their hearts. William is confident Hassan will be able to tell by the fangs. “I saw her on one of my monster hunts, I thought I’d poke around the woods looking for hidden magic weapons. She showed up when I was about to get jumped by some Fangers, and she turned it around on them. I think your approach to these vampire-hunting Church goons is the right one. Stay out of their way and let them do their work.”

Servants

Reaching up, William flips the corkboard over to show another network on the back.

Wayland the Smith

A confused array of threads twist between the drawing of the woman, and pages torn from library books. William hadn’t looked through the long, exhaustive catalogues himself of course. Some googly eyes at the proper librarians had seen the information delivered to his waiting fingertips.

“We might be looking at one of the greatest con artists in history,” stroking his chin, William nods at the illustration with a look of respect. Recognition of another artist at work, a master of lies. “Nothing adds up, either none of this person’s feats were ever real, or the real ones are buried under a metric ton of tall tales. This girl is a total fraud.”

Narrowing his eyes, William adds, “The connection between her and her Master is weak, too. I think it has to be affecting her.”

Maitreya

Frustratingly, this giant honker-toting Buddhist goblin remains an enigma to William. There’s a level where she sends shivers down his spine, so alone, empty and cold does her image look. That’s the nature of Buddhist enlightenment, or so his layman’s reading has informed him. Let go of attachments, and suck yourself off until you’re so full of your own shit you think you’re a god hard enough to think it real.

“Of course she wouldn’t have something like a… Noble Phantasm,” the words still feel alien in his mouth. “To play pretend at divinity, she let go of everything she ever really cared about. But if she’s bothering with this wish fulfillment war, I don’t think she’s let it all go. There’s something she’s after. And that desire is a goddamn antithesis to what she is.” Raising his head, William feels full of conviction. As much of a bombshell as she is, he’s come to the conclusion that he hates this woman. “If we can break this self-deluded self-image, do you think her power would come crumbling down too?”

Cyrano

All give and no get. That’s what William gets out of this one. It’s like all her connections are funneling effort out of her without anything in reverse. “She’s going to burn out,” he tells Hassain, pointing to one of the duelist’s pictures on the board, a drawing of her next to the homunculus girl, fending off an attack from behind by a minotaur.

William has little sympathy for her. Sure, she’s being taken advantage of, but she’s gone looking for it. It’s a prison of her own making, a crime with no perpetrator.

Charon

“I fucking knew it,” pointing to a single red thread leading up to the ceiling, William looks at Hassan with bugged out eyes. “It’s aliens.”

“Don’t look at me like that. He’s connected to something up there, all the way up. It’s aliens. The ancient Greek gods were aliens!” Spinning around, he clenches his fist at the board. “I knew it. I always knew it. Now I can prove it.”

Raim

The raven is conspicuously absent from most of the board, attached only to the blue-haired boy with a single red thread. William glances past, moving on to the next.

Commodus

Standing and showboating in the middle of a crowd. She’s basically posing- probably did pose for the photo, for whoever Hassan stole it off of. William glares at the photograph, seething. Nothing he’d like more than to tear her down a peg. “Nah,” he mutters to himself. “I’d fuckin’ win.”

“Decisive. No, Master, you would not.”

Baphomet

The strained thread binding this creature to humanity is slick, and close to snapping. Even a bond to William, as translucent and half-formed as it is. William feels a great sense of danger, a sense of being watched, as if the drawing is staring into him and judging him for something he didn’t do. And that pisses him off. “Let the Church weaken it,” he agrees with Hassan. “But I want to kill it. I want us to kill it. Just for the satisfaction.” I’ll teach you to tell me what’s right and what’s wrong.

Fenrir

A triangle of red thread brings together the photograph of the Japanese chef, a tenement building, and a scratchy blue pen drawing of a woman with dog ears and bare tits. “I saw her rip apart a gang of satyr when they tried to gut the shaggy Jap on his way home, when I was trying to follow him. I ducked out after that. Don’t fancy trying to get past this guard dog.”

Bobblewobble Zibblezobble

A grey-haired man in red was standing behind one of the identical children in the drawing. Now, William flips the board back over and brings attention to it. “These two are connected, more than anyone else on this board. I’ve only seen connections like that between a parent and a child, but I don’t know how that’s possible. I’d like you to keep an eye on this one, something’s off about him.”

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Pub: 21 Dec 2024 01:15 UTC

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