Work smarter, not harder. This was, and still is, Raven's motto for most things in life and in combat. Though her favorite saying was If something seems fair, something is wrong, which could be easily reflected on her approach for the Greater Grail War, she didn't fight cleanly and used both dirty and underhanded tactics. An example of such tactics would be the use of blackmail, but she didn't have enough dirt on any member of either faction for any form of blackmail to actually make a difference. On a different note, she was gonna perform an experiment today, which could (if it worked well enough) potentially help her acquire information on how the situation stood within the Black and Red factions, simultaneously.
Said experiment involved a combination of the Bird-conjuring-charm, Avis, from the Witchcraft-tree of magic, Possess-and-Control, a branch of Sorcery and Thought-Acceleration along with Memory-Partition, common techniques used by Mages. What she essentially intended to do was to divide her mind into a small flock of conjured birds and use said flock to spy on both the Black and Red factions simultaneously, while she herself wouldn't be leaving the safety of her homebase. After opening a window, she proceeded with her experiment.
"Avis." Chanted Raven while drawing a slightly stylized version of the letter R with her right hand. This was her magical trigger motion. Since Sorcerers and Sorceresses very rarely had any form of proper magical training, they often used specific motions as triggers for their magic to activate, two practitioners of Sorcery very rarely having the same trigger motion. With a sound of a somewhat loud bang, a total of eight ravens appeared out of thin air. She couldn't resist the urge to release a snicker at the irony that her conjured birds were the namesake of her preferred name, Raven. That and the fact that they were at the same time quite convenient for what she intended to use the conjured birds for, after all, ravens were everywhere in the world and nobody would raise any real suspicion like a less globally common family of birds would. Not that she has actually told anyone, but she was secretly envious of birds, having the freedom to go anywhere they wanted in the world. "Time for some espionage. Cerebro." With the chant for the Possession-spell from the Sorcery-tree of magic, Cerebro, Raven's eyes closed as her mind got divided across the flock of eight conjured ravens. With unified squawk, the now possessed birds fly out through the window and scatter.
While Raven were proceeding with her experiment, Jack on the other hand was bored out her damn mind. In order to deal with her boredom, she started messing with some of Raven's collection of magical items and random pieces of mundane junk that were just lying around their home. Which included the Philosopher Stones Raven harvested from the golems during the first month of her and Jack's involvement (or rather lack thereof) in the Greater Grail War. Not really knowing what she was doing, Jack just grabbed one of the Philosopher Stones and a rather large piece of (relatively) shiny metal. After playing for a few minutes, Jack got bored again and accidentally lost her grip on the Philosopher's Stone and piece of metal, making both of them hit the floor and each other, which causes an unexpected reaction and a bright red light. Once the light faded, Jack's gaze fell upon the result of her little accident and what she saw made her eyes widen in both surprise and awe.
"Oooh pretty. But now we wonder if big sis will be happy or mad at us for this? Meh we'll just have to wait and see." Said Jack, holding a short conversation with the many souls she was born from.
Somewhere else in the area surrounding Trifas, one of Raven's ravens were following the Servant that had been watching the duel between Karna and the assumed Saber of Black, who hadn't been seen since said duel, as they traversed the landscape at a rather fast pace, but not fast enough for a bird to be unable to keep up. As the Servant stopped for a short while after a few minutes of running, the possessed raven (and by extension Raven herself) landed on a nearby tree branch within hearing distance as the Servant muttered something out loud to herself.
"Merde. Something is definitely wrong with this Grail War. Calm yourself Ruler, now's not the time for worrying." If ravens had eyebrows, then the possessed bird that was following Ruler would have raised one of them in slight confusion at Rulers muttering. Doing an avian equivalent of a shrug, the bird took off and resumed following the Heroic Spirit.
Meanwhile at the Yggdmillennia castle, most of the masters were busy doing… something, while the Servants were doing… other things. The Archer of Black, Gilgamesh Alter-A-F, and the Lancer of Black, Vlad the III Tepes, were playing a game of chess while discussing philosophy. The Rider of Black, Astolfo, on the other hand had somehow managed to drag the master of Archer, Fiore Yggdmillennia, and a few homunculi into a game of poker. From what the possessed bird spying on the poker-match could see, Fiore appeared to be winning.
At the same time, three of Raven's ravens were spying on the Servants of Red, specifically Achilles, Atalante and William Shakespeare. Karna was nowhere to be seen, the same for the Assassin of Red, Semiramis. The three Servants that were visible however seemed, for lack of a better word, bored. Achilles eventually got fed up with the silence and boredom and tried (and succeeded) to start a conversation.
"Have the two of you been receiving very few direct orders from your actual masters instead of relayed orders through the priest, or am I the only one?" Asked Achilles, earning surprised looks from the other two Heroic Spirits.
"It pains me slightly to admit this, but it appears that I'm not the only one who has been receiving less and less direct orders from my actual master recently." Admitted Atalante, while seemingly trying to suppress a frown.
"It is something of a tragedy, but I two must confess that my situation is similar if not identical to the two of yours." Exclaimed Shakespeare, while shaking his head. At this point Atalante stopped trying to suppress her frown and started cursing under her breath.
"Something is wrong with this Grail War. I don't know what it is but I do know that something is wrong, I can feel it." Exclaimed Atalante. Raven took that as her cue that she had had enough espionage for now and cut the connection between her ravens and her mind. Resulting in her mind returning to her actual body at her homebase.
A second later after waking up, her mind was promptly bombarded by all the information she gathered through her experiment. Then, as if on cue, Jack entered through the door with… was that a bird-shaped golem, with what looked like a Philosopher Stone as a core, made out of what appeared to be metal, sitting on top of Jack's head!?
"Jack…" Said Raven slowly, earning the attention of the Heroic Spirit of the hidden blade. "where did that bird-shaped golem come from?"
"It was an accident! We were just playing with some junk and a Philosopher Stone!" Exclaimed Jack in a somewhat panicked tone. "And the result of said accident is the pretty bird-thing."
"*sigh* well, there goes an emergency Philosopher Stone to waste." Exclaimed Raven, talking for the most part to herself in a tone of disappointment. "*sigh* what's done is done. We still have a few Stones left. I'm not angry at you Jack, maybe a little disappointed, but not angry. Come on Jack, let's go and get something to eat. All this espionage has made me hungry. I know that you don't need to eat, but I'd feel a guilty if I am the only one who's eating."