Here I am with a new project, following an idea I had with my dear partner.

Having reconnected with the Fate universe, after much hesitation, I decided to go first. In the manner of the great arcs of this beautiful saga, we sketch our own arc from this universe, Fate/Archetype.

Just like in the game, the main plot is strongly influenced by the different routes that can be taken by the player. At the moment, our project has 3 routes, including this one. Each route focuses on a particular Master-Servant team pair or trinity. This route, the third in our timeline, focuses on the characters of Adelaide (OC), Dorian (OC) and Waver, as well as their respective Servants (who may change depending on the route chosen).

As a reminder, the universe of Fate does not belong to me, being the property of Type Moon. Apart from the above copyrights, this story belongs to me in its entirety, under the intellectual property and copyright laws. It is strictly forbidden to reproduce, use and/or distribute this story without the explicit permission of its author.

By the way : this is a translation of the french version of my fanfiction, "Royaumes Eternels". French is my mother tongue, but I truly wished to share this story with english readers, so... here we go !

Have a good reading, don't hesitate to send me your feedbacks by PM and/or reviews, and see you soon !

Lenia41


Chapter 1 - One foot in the grave


Warka, Southern Iraq - Year 2014

The sun was blazing in the azure sky, beaming its incendiary rays on the mere mortals who ventured into these ruins. Iraq was a dangerous land in recent years, but it was rich in history, no matter what some politicians might think. The infernal brightness and heat of the place were even more sublimated by the sand and the rock which invaded the place, and partially covered it after the sandstorms.

Warka, or of its ancient name Uruk, had been a very significant city as well on the religion as on the politics during several millennia. A great archaeological site of ancient Mesopotamia, it was recognized by some as the cradle of writing. It was also known for its two titular gods, Anu the sky god and the goddess Ishtar, venerated in the great temple of Eanna. A mythology as fascinating as had been, according to the writings, tragic the mythical end of Uruk. Finally, these ruins were famous for the mythical kings, as prestigious as King Arthur, that were attributed to him. One of the oldest heroes of the world cultural heritage was the figurehead.

Many priceless treasures had been exhumed by the archaeologists who had traversed it: religious and astronomical manuscripts, clay tablets of laws in cuneiform writing, which recalled its past brilliance of economic, social, religious and intellectual jewel.

Uruk was not in its first archaeological excavation, and, she hoped, not in its last.

A large international archaeological expedition was hurrying around the ancient ruins, shouting to be heard in the tumult approaching their position. The archaeologists, technicians and experts strolled like a vast anthill to exhume and secure the last important artifacts as quickly as possible; time was running out.

Time was indeed against them. War, as always, was going to reduce to ashes not only countless lives, but also the priceless heritage of humanity.

- Professor Fleury, are you finished downstairs?

- Almost! The guys have managed to pull up the most valuable artifacts, I'm inspecting one last room and I'm on my way. I won't be long!

- Hurry up! I know you're familiar with the danger, but we can't compromise the safety of our teams any further. We must evacuate immediately!

Britain's leading archaeologist once again plunged into the deepening darkness of the room. The tombs and treasure chambers had been emptied first, along with the remains of libraries and archives. Her gloved hands brushed gently against the carved walls as her blue eyes and feet remained alert for any trap in his path. Fortunately, it wasn't as dangerous as the Egyptian pyramids, which were riddled with traps of all kinds, but she shouldn't let her guard down! The architects could be very devious with intruders and undesirables, even many millennia later.

Adelaide Fleury was in no hurry to reach the outside, and regretted not being able to linger longer in this most fascinating palace. The exact architecture of Uruk could not be estimated in a totally reliable way, so its theoretical plans were constantly updated by the intellectual mages and civilians who were studying its case. She had stumbled upon the ruins of an ancient palace that didn't look like much at first glance, but it had titillated her curiosity as a Middle Eastern historian. It was a pity that Dorian could not accompany her! Her Irish post-doc and mage apprentice would certainly have loved the expedition... and railed against her for her recklessness, or "impossibility" as an old acquaintance would say. Her students often compared her to Indiana Jones!

While she was amused to be able to interest them in her subject through this means, she regretted that the image of archaeologists was often mixed with that of grave robbers. They hardly gained profit from it them, considering their salary, if not the intellectual pleasure to make advance knowledge and to protect items and artifacts otherwise more threatened by uneducated people unable to appreciate the priceless character of their heritage, of their own past.

Whether it was her adventurous and fearless temperament, her piercing frankness, or the flamboyant redness of her hair, the teacher of telluric magic at the London Academy of Magic rarely went unnoticed by her colleagues. Respected for her knowledge and dedication to her profession, she was often seen as a happy crank.

At least she had a full complement of students at her tutorials and lectures!

Under the reassuring shade of the ruined palace walls, her pale Celt skin did not fear the bite of the sun for the moment, although it had taken on some color in recent days.

She saw a shadow coming out of a side room, and recognized without difficulty her esteemed colleague and correspondent, Professor Karim Salar, with a slight smile on her lips:

- Everything is good on your side Karim?

- We won't be able to bring back everything, but the most urgent thing is done. We will have to make do with it.

- I agree with you, it is regrettable. You can go back to the entrance; I just want to check something before going back up.

- I understand, but hurry up. Promise me that if I ask you to leave, you will do it immediately and without question. Do we have a deal?

- Come on, you know me! I don't plan on giving up any time soon, I still have a lot of papers to correct on my desk and an impatient man to please!

- Do your best Adelaide, I know we can't ask more of you than that.

She nodded enthusiastically in agreement before setting off energetically towards the large room she had spotted a little further on.

Although the collapse of the stones had covered part of it, at a glance it must have been immense in its time. The circumference of the room and the arrangement of the few vestiges of furniture led her to think that it could be an old room of reception or even of audience. Alas, she could not linger on the place to dig further her hypothesis and to elucidate the mystery of the identity of this small still unknown palace. Those damned terrorists!

However, she could try to solve one last riddle, more modestly.

The professor returned to the right wall, whose roughness had caught her attention during her first passage. Its location was particularly interesting, if she retained one of her hypotheses. If it was a reception or audience room, it would not have been surprising that the throne was placed towards the bottom, posed on the platform which one could guess on the badly beaten ground. A small effort of imagination made it possible to transcribe what she knew on the furniture and the architecture of the time in these stripped places, with a smoothness close to this innovative technology of the virtual reality, which would probably revolutionize their future research.

She let her hand brush against the wall again, inspecting it while perceiving the tremors and the tumult at a distance that came from outside, reminding her of the time she did not have. After a few minutes that seemed very long, Adelaide could not hold back a satisfied smile when her fingers finally distinguished a very cleverly concealed mechanism. Her heart throbbed with the excitement of a near discovery as well as the adrenaline of the danger that surrounded them.

- I knew you had another trick up your sleeve, you! Let's see it...

Whoever the architect of this building was, he had put the nerves of his team and his own neurons to the test! However, this did not displease the Franco-British woman, who shared with her beloved this taste for small intellectual challenges. She would tell him everything, when she returned! While remaining on its guards and alert with the least noise or movement, the magician engaged the mechanism and waited, shared between a great curiosity and a hardened mistrust.

After a few moments of oppressive silence, she felt the stone give way under her fingers with a slight creak, just enough to reveal a "cat hole" where she could slip through.

Rectangular in shape, this hidden room was not distinguished by its size. Its size was more reminiscent of the boudoirs of the absolutist Sun King and his unfortunate descendants, even if its layout was not the same. She could see the traces on one of the walls or the shelves of an old library where parchments and tablets must have been kept. Debris on the floor suggested the potential presence of a work table, even if there were no tools left. Everything else must have been stolen by grave robbers, ransacked by intruders or scattered by time.

Adelaide cautiously and respectfully moved forward in the small room towards a bronze plaque which glittered with a light orange light on the whiteness of the limestone. Crouching down, the thirty-year-old meticulously cleared some debris to inspect the plaque. Her alert eyes, aided by the frontal light adorning her helmet, noticed the presence of a worn sheet of parchment wedged under a rock. Her features crinkled into a slight grimace: the object was going to be difficult to retrieve, the large equipment had already come to the surface and she had no time to commandeer it.

With the extreme delicacy of an expert hand Adelaide tried to free the parchment, but as soon as her gloved hands touched the sheet, it fell into dust, flowing between her fingers like the sand of the desert. A weary but hardly surprised sigh escaped her fleshy lips.

- I knew it would happen. It would have been too good to be true, but we could always try.

A slight metallic tinkle brought her out of her contemplation. Turning towards the source of the sound, a faint golden glow stood out not far from the darkness, drowned by the grime of the resident dust.

Her curiosity rekindled, the young woman twisted her left arm to make her way through the pile of debris towards the still unknown item, with the same excitement as a child unwrapping a Christmas present. Her hand groped for a few moments in the void, muttering to an impatient Karim via his walkie-talkie that she had something and to wait a few seconds.

An exclamation of joy escaped her when her fingers finally managed to grasp the item, then to extract herself as skilfully as possible from the dusty rubble.

Without further ado, she grabbed a piece of the bronze plate and grabbed a microfiber cloth to dust off the artifact... well, even if the general public didn't call it an artifact.

Between her gloved palms rested a golden stylus, engraved with cuneiform characters.

A shuddering noise, however, dampened her enthusiasm, as if an earthquake were about to hit Warka. Sheltering as best he could under the remains of the desk, the vibrations that emanated from the rock did not tell her anything good.

The expertise would wait. The hour to flee as fast as possible had come!

Wrapping as best she could the stylus in the microfiber rags, she had before putting it away with delicacy in the most protected pocket of her backpack, the archaeologist got up and pressed the button of her walkie-talkie, starting once the parasites dissipated:

- Karim, this is Adelaide. Do you read me?

- Bzz... Bzz... I read you! On the other hand, it's getting hotter and hotter here, come back as soon as possible!

- What's happening? I can't hear you... Can you repeat that? I'm coming... Karim? Karim!

The crackling noise got worse and worse, making her eardrums twitch before the communication was abruptly cut off. By all the gods, this was not the time for her equipment to let her down! Upset, she inspected and tapped the walkie-talkie before pressing the activation button. The crackling sound came back for a few seconds, but it was not Karim who answered her. She became even more worried when she heard the sound of gunshots, screams, pleas in Arabic, and then radical calls for the murder of traitors and infidels.

The blood froze in her veins as terror covered her with an icy blanket. She knew enough Arabic to understand the content of the calls she had heard.

The Franco-British archaeologist however did not have time to leave her tetany before a whistling of increasingly strong does not come to twist its eardrums. Instinct made her jump away from the entrance while the hissing became unbearable, rush towards the small isolated room and throw herself under the thick bronze desk. Rolling into a foetal position, protecting her neck with her hands and covering her ears with her elbows, she closed her eyes and tried not to lose her composure.

Everything was confusion, as if the apocalypse was striking right over her head.

Everything went black.

Before her lamp went out, she briefly lit a hand on the floor. Through the torn glove, the glow revealed a blood red tattoo.