03-04-2016, 06:04 PM
Quote:Mature postThere are times when even I needed a break from Hogwarts, both past and present. Hogsmede was ever a distraction but even then it didn’t fill the hole in me that craved a certain kind of perverse desire to destroy and dominate. Those two attributes often I had to rule and reign in lest they reveal myself in ways even I doubt I could come back from. No doubt the person who I became, or rather my former self devolved into, ultimately became his undoing.
History, time and time again, has shown that to oppress a person results in one of three outcomes in said person. The first is the rebel, to which I admire their zeal and may have had some mitigating factors on ‘Voldemort’s’ untimely demise. Second is a person subsumed by indifference, forged by any regime that ruled with an iron fist; these people adapt to any situation so as to best maintain their accepted lifestyle regardless of radical the change is. And the third… and the one I loathe the most but found most common in my time at Hogwarts, the sycophant.
Truly there nothing more worthy of despise from both former than the one who becomes a lapdog for the one who kicks them. And it these people who were the easiest to twist to my cause even early on, because even the lapdog will bite its neighbor to protect their place under its master. And for all their usefulness I had longed to kill many whom I encountered and often sent me out from my hallowed halls to aimless wanderings.
Thankfully today was not one of those cases, and I resolved to never allow those bootlickers to ever tarnish me or my Order again. No, today I wandered from my grounds for a very different reason. Boredom. Monotony it seems will forever be ally to my sworn enemy of mediocrity. And what better way to law low both like some many pieces of chaff than to explore my new home’s countryside? And with Nealaphh currently holding my personal dungeons hostage with some test subjects that I had left him with… I needed a breather.
Which found me on the path leading into the Forbidden Forest or rather what took the original’s place. It was a lonely walk hour long walk, soon it would be populated with a wizarding village and a train station, but those would be a long way off as I worked to recover my stores of omnilium. But the moment I left the trail into the darkness I saw what I was looking for. Or rather it saw me; I remained unmolested for some time though until I neared and then entered small grove.
I had my suspicions as to what was hunting me, unluckily for them they wouldn’t have a clue as what I was.
“It looks like a hooman,” came a serrated voice from beyond my sight.
“Doesn’t smell like one… smells like the scrolls master reads,” another voice sang in response, its words crumpled paper.
“Master bids us to kill hoomans, should we kills this ones too, hoomans never smells like his?” the third voice was tighter, higher pitched.
“Maybe we should eat it!” Came a fifth with a deeper baritone. The excitement it was exuding seemed to fill the air.
How many were there?
It was then I started smelling something rotten, no not rotten, earthly. A smell I associated with the ground, darker fire spells and of potions. Sulfur. That caught a portion of me that I hadn’t expected, brimstone was rarely associated with anything on the magizoology side. Even dragons were known to be far cleaner.
“I bet it tastes like shit! Let Azuth have it, he likes shit!” mocked another.
Muggle philosophies however… demons, true demons that were so much the cliché in literature but practically unknowns in my time beyond the muggle world. These… things matched what I was hearing and smelling now. Muggles it seemed had a leg up on the wizards for once. Something this unknown to me needed to be explored, thoroughly.
“It smiles! Why does the bookman smile when it can hears us?” A sixth said before it started hooting with a reptilian ape like bark. The sound was echoed among the others in throngs of sound repeating in variance and condition.
They had me surrounded, not that it really mattered. My hand strengthened its grip on the yew wand and had held the spell for nearly thirty seconds during the conversation regarding my ‘demise’ and methods to accomplish such. I was not particularly involved with that idea, so as it was, I was remiss to let them function on poor reasoning. And perhaps more unfortunately for them, their phrasing of my existence was far too close to the truth to be allowed to spread.
“It smiles,” I said coolly, “because it is going to kill you all.”
Sets of eyes began to flicker into existence in every direction I could see. Each were unblinking fiery golden orbs that bobbed up and down, methodically in step with one another. I didn’t need a mirror to know that murderous look, granted mine was far more charming than anything these creatures could hope to manage with their deep red skin, horns and elfish ears.
Elves, that’s what they looked like, demonically possessed house elves with lizard like proportions.
Deep beyond my sight, something shouted in a resonating command, “KILL!”
All at once they charged, some hefting small weapons, others baring their teeth and claws. The only thing that stayed the same was their gaits. It was a clumsy two legged galloping that barely looked trained, let alone efficient. But I’ll give them this it was fast; not that it mattered.
Flicking my wrist, I readied the magic had been bringing to bear since I first suspected hostile company, and whipped my wand around while murmuring, “Ferventis Gelata.”
Gouts of liquefied nova and glory erupted into from the tip of my wand, spiraling around me in a near full circle arc. Where it impacted the molten fluid blasted outward into a rolling, boiling conflagration of red and gold fire that into the forest with a constant roar that I could feel in my chest. Magic was singing in my ears as the first dozen souls perished in my arcane wrought power.
Those that didn’t fall easily clawed through flames like thirsting kittens who hadn’t succored in days. Only these bottom dwellers had far fewer affable characteristics going for them, and those they did have were burning away with the clouds of black smoke.
A hooting bark behind me was a warning too late as pain raked across my back, spinning me to face my foe.
This time I didn’t bother with the verbal incantation as my mind summoned a fire of an entirely darker persuasion. Ensis Umbraduro
Raising my wand upwards even as I finished the turn, a bar of dark scarlet fire met the blade- no, blades of a taller imp like creature. Iron sizzled and the two swords were bisected followed by its neck, as fiendfyre chewed through metal, flesh and bone; exaggerating the smell of sulfur to an even greater degree. I only had a flash of its face, eyes wide in shock and its mouth forming a little ‘o’ before the still walking corpse fell to three smaller siblings who were too seeking blood.
Fencing, is a lot like wizarding duels. They are the same motions, the same stepping; even the wand movements have practical purpose. It was a shame then that I my audience didn’t appreciate the subtly of how three more of the crettins fell with a single twist of my legs and a slight extension of my elbow-
“Uroth!”
That sound sent a chill down my spine, it seemed unintelligible but I had long learned not to underestimate anything in this world. The word while singular rang far too precisely for me to question. I turned back around, dispatching another imp, only to see the large one’s corpse start to bubble. Its head bursting into a liquid that raced to reconnect with its former self with trails silver-white smoke.
That didn’t bode well. Worse now was the fact that my barrier was beginning to die out and I could see that I indeed I had an audience, though far less appreciative than I’d have liked. Many of them were grinning at me. I didn’t need a second warning to begin charging my wand once more.
“Its has magic. We shall feast upon its flesh and take its power. Kill him for the master!” Came the commanding voice again, this time though I had a face to connect to. A thick scaly face with two long, uprising horns that if anything seemed quite… handsome. Though like its minions it did not seem to have sense of what it was dealing with.
Willing the sword away, I brought my wand around in a sweeping motion, drawing in the magical power of the land and fueled it the strange cost of my own stamina, and roared, “Magnus Totum Lacerovisis!”
If the hearthfire rumbled, the charged form of the evocative curse spell set practically quaked like thunder. The reforming corpse in front of me was gone as the force of my spell blew forward, outward, in a cone widening force that razed the land and scatter chunks of gore in every direction but my own. All that remained was a growing acre of red blood and scorched earth. Beyond it though I found my true quarry and began my march forward.
He raised his staff, a curled wooden thing bearing carved bones, and again he screamed out another, “Uroth!”
This time though I could hear the desperation and hesitation in his voice. The silver-white smoke though that issued forth from the prominent portion of the foci however didn’t pause, it rushed forward instead past me and almost immediately something barreled its weight upon my back.
A fiery set of claws ripped at my face and took me to the ground.
Unlike my foe though, I didn’t waste effort contemplating my untimely demise. With a jerk of my arm I slung the beast by the neck in my left hand and with my right, sent a simple [i]Frusto[i] into the skull of a newly reanimated imp to slacken it for good this time.
I could feel the ink pouring from my face and embers sizzling from the exposed flesh of my muscle. These imbeciles dared attack me and think they could turn the very powers of creation against me? Then wound me and force me to dirty my fingers with their blood? Nothing got away with that.
I snarled, and swept my wand around forcing another gout of fluidic flame to circle around me in an arc. It fell behind the chief but separated the rest of the beasts from its commands. More screams and howling pain filled the air as I continued my approach. I was thanked by way the sounds of feet thundering in retreat.
It was alone with the lead demon.
“U-ur-“ It began to stutter out.
I hissed one word filled with the loathing I had for worms who sought reach for the stars that they could barely understand before they could even reach the countertop of life. One single spell ended this little skirmish, “Crucio…!”
Alien screams of agony echoed dully amongst the flame and forest.
I didn’t relent the spell even as a thing line of weariness crept into my body. I kept it up until it convulsed and no breath was left in its lungs. It was only allowed relief when it eyes fogged with blood, obscuring the normal fiery glow. It gasped hard but did move otherwise for a good long while.
“Master will avenge mees! He will knows when I die!”
I made my disappointment with that answer quite clear when and uttered, “Crucio” again. It started to convulse and thrash as I twisted my wand to bring out the best ‘resonating’ pain. Each shiver and jerk grew more and more violent until the sparking hemorrhaging of red in its eyes forced me to pause. And perhaps also dissuade it of any notions of a quick death.
“I never said I’d kill you,” I cocked an eyebrow before adding, “Who is your master?”
Its eyes rolled loosely in its sockets but they turned to me only briefly enough that I could see it plotting.
“Our goth liwo avake avhe ukoul agh fleukh!” It raged for one gutteral moment and reached for its staff.
I slammed my foot down on its wrist. The sound of bones snapped right at home among the twigs, to reinforce this pointed I growled, “In English.”
A muttered incantation and a burning white light gave it further incentive to do just that. It screams weren’t as loud though. Pity, I hoped I hadn’t broken it already. If its vocal chords had snapped… I’d have to find another and this entire jaunt would have been a waste.
“Who is you master, creature?” I repeated with strong almost patient enunciation. Almost.
It turned its head towards me just as I move my wand to curse it again, it was staring at me bleakly but it seemed to know what I had intended to do as it was yelping before I even touched it further. “It- Its Dracula! In the castle far from here! Hes Scoola’s master!”
Dracula. I had heard that name before since coming to this place and that was excluding my previous life. It made sense to some degree but also worrying. If all that I had heard about the ‘leaders’ of each verse was true… I was not ready to take even the weakest of them on just yet. I need more information.
I raised my wand, its reaction instant. Scoola caught on quickly.
“Youss said you would spares me!” It screamed pleadingly.
I blinked. Of all the things I had been expecting that was the kind of lie I hadn’t seen coming. What was running through its head, either way… “I said nothing of the sort.”
That it would assume so; that led me to believe two things, the first being this wasn’t the first time the creature had been interrogated in such a fashion. which led to the next line of thinking, it’s about its ‘master’. Scoola had died many a time in service of Dracula, likely revived in a similar manner as its minions.
“Information yous want yes? Sp-spares pitiful Scoola!”
I gave him my best ‘consideration’ look. The kind you use when deciding between one meal or another. Predatory. It was something I had trained many times within the Slytherin common room specifically for instances when dealing with sycophants and it seemed that this creature was not any different. It was also a rare instance where I had more than a grudging respect for the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs.
“Why were you here?” I asked, fully expecting the lie that came.
The demon swallowed, its eyes bobbing incomprehensibly, and it hoarsed out a reply, “Scouting for meats, for magicks!”
White lightning struck it hard and renewed the forest and mine’s thirst for screams. Pink aspirations were frothing from his mouth as blood and spittle mixed into bubbles. I could practically hear its heart pounding in the screech’s fluctuation of the octaves even as its body started giving in with putrid smell of excretions. I left the spell fade though before it could fully run out of breath. Its rasping gasps though didn’t immediately resume until I prodded it with my foot hard enough to compress its chest.
The inhalation of breath was nearly as loud as its agony. I didn’t give it a chance to rest longer, leveling my wand towards its eyes.
“Waits! Wes was ordered to finds the Towers that eclipse the Darkshires! Master wants us to make not be talls anymore!” It screeched the moment it had a chance, its arms flailing wildly to block out any further of the cruciatus curse. Not that it would work.
Snarling, I brought the wand around to hit it one more time with just a burst. Any more and I think I would kill it and alert its master to everything that had transpired. That could not happen, not yet. The minions didn’t seem like the type ‘Count’ Dracula would monitor but this thing had magic, something more than mundane weapons. It could raise the dead almost effortlessly. If Harry and Ginny were any sign of it, for any magic to really take hold in this world, it had to be empowered by a prime. This thing had the backing of another.
“TRUTH! Wes tells truth!” It sobbed between gasps, “Yous master now! We won’ts lies to bookman! The Fallen won’t lies to bookman!”
Once again I was reminded of my vow to deal with individuals such as these and I had an idea just such way where I could fulfill that promise and make use of the thing. A solution that put a grin of my lips and put even more fear it its blinded eyes, “Fallen eh? Yes I think that will do just nicely… stupefy!”
Scarlet light flashed faster than ‘Scoola’ could even protest. At least some things remained the same as it slumped, its energy totally spent. If even the simple stunning charm didn’t take on something as weak as this thing, I really had to start worrying about how significantly my capabilities had been compromised. But at least what I had done worked. One good scouring charm removed the smell and banished its staff into the manifold.
I had briefly considered doing the same to the demon but I had no idea how the pocket universe I had constructed would affect live flesh.
Glancing around I spotted onr other of the- Fallen it had called itself- still alive. It was twitching, a good amount of its lower have had been burn away by the overpowered hearthfire charm. It’d have a few days of life if I helped it. If I didn’t… it could make itself useful in other ways. Always good to have a spare in either case. Or twenty as I banished the corpses to another manifold separate from my collectibles. Making that mistake once was enough.
Within a few moments I had the bulk of the mess cleaned up and I expected the nature of the omniverse and well… nature to take care of the rest. With nothing else left for me here I began to trek my way back up to Hogwarts, dragging the one and a half living Fallen by the horns. By the time I got back nearly two hours later I had managed to recover from my fight, and like my wounds the last of late morning darkness was burning off though the moor’s fog was barely thinned in any event.
As I mounted the steps to the Entrance Hall, I stopped before the Great Hall and moved to a fireplace that had taken the place of the entryway to the heartstone. One scoopful of floo powder in hand I commanded the castle to take me to the, “Deputy Lab.” Emerald flame leaped to my words and consumed my essence, propelling me through the network of grates, my two companions bouncing and scraping off of what was certainly hard stone, and in moments I was where I deigned.
I was greeted to a large study with places for each major section of magical study. Starting from ceiling, I had charmed it to appear as the night with a view of the Milky Way though I could change it as my needs required. The walls of were entirely of books, specifically every single one I had ever read or even browsed, the room unfortunately was nearly full edge to edge. I may have to at some point extend it into a small library. Over near the potions and alchemy bench, what I had set aside was both the bubbling alchemiac osmium that I had taken over for Nealaphh and the iridium sphere that I had yet to shape into the shell for the gigaton hammer.
All in all it was functional but not very comfortable for extended periods which had been why I left Hogwarts in the first place.
The Lab was something I had designed specifically for myself in instances such as these where other portions of the castle were… unavailable. Besides these two would barely require the needs of the full dungeon when I had three cells right here, hidden though they were. And perhaps unfortunately for the overly cooked Fallen, he would not need a cell to stay in.
Moving lightly to the bookcase closest to where I had entered I tapped the book, A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, thrice. At one point I had considered Common Sense but that was one of the few classics I hadn’t read-
All at once the entire housing, books and all slid into its neighbor seamlessly, revealing in the process the three ward lined containment rooms. Far more than enough for right… but sometime in the future that may not be the case.
Smiling to myself, I threw Scoola into one of the three pits before sealing the barrier that would prevent its escape and being heard through the walls. I’d probably have a house elf deliver some food to it regularly lest he starve and reveal everything about what had happened.
With a dragging motion of my wand to seal the bookcase back over the opening, I turned back towards the cauldron that my colleague and I had been laboring over. Bright white light of molten metal was spilling over the edge though the liquid itself remained completely contained. After having dealt with radiant heat enough this last couple of days I had ended up setting up a defensive cooling charm over the entire potion’s lab as a precaution before moving even this little amount up from the Institute. It wouldn’t protect direct contact but it did keep my room from going up from flames or myself from drying out.
However I wasn’t quite ready for the cauldron shaped crucible just yet.
A flick of my wrist saw my other burden hit the table with a bone rattling thump as I retrieved two potions I had prepared. The first was a Blood Restoring Draught, and the other a complex mixture of Skelegrow, Essence of Dittany, glycerin and a biological accelerant. The combination would be lethal in the long term but in the short term it would completely reform the minion’s body long enough to endure the next few steps.
The imp in question was a smaller specimen than the one I had trapped behind my bookcase, lithe even. It had lapsed into a coma some time on the way back, more than likely from the pain alone. Well a little more wouldn’t change anything.
Drawing my wand, I pushed my will into it, forming a fine bladed tip of force that slid into the soft flesh easily. Each slice caused to body to twitch until finally I paralyzed it with a weal petrifying charm. Once I went deeper dark blood immediately began to well and pour out and until a whisper of hearthfire cauterized the crevace. Slowly I worked in this manner, excavating the flesh to form a hollow until the heart itself was revealed just below the ribcage.
My objective complete, I unstopped the phials containing the two potions and poured. The blood draught first was absorbed nearly as fast as it fell into the hole. Immediately the whole body seemed to flush as the pressure on the burnt tissue was reaching its limit. That was the signal to use the concoction and to take a step back.
A piercing squeal rattled the glass in the room with rather involuntary type keel to it. The entire body began to shake which in itself was remarkable given the lack of limbs to leverage itself with. Even so even that excuse was disappearing as bone and flesh began to pool out of it with startling speed. It looked malformed with silvery sheen to it but that disappeared as it extended further into something more ‘normal’ in appearance.
It took nearly ten minutes for it to stop seizing, I silenced it after one, and on the eleventh it sat up against the strength of the body binding spell. Not that impressive given that I barely put any power into it. It had been meant merely to control and slow its movements. Now though was the fun part.
Its eyes flickered glassily around to the office but only after it saw me did it freeze like some wild animal unsure how to react to an obvious predator. I didn’t hesitate to take the opening. My wand flickered with my movements forward and pressed itself to the base of the thing’s skull and focused all my thought into one single desire, to annihilate any existence of its mind.
“Crucio!” I sang.
The bolt of crimson was perhaps the brightest I had seen produce by the spell, that started and ended a loud yelping keen in less than a second. It wasn’t the result of righteous anger but close. The purpose was simply to crush. There was no exultation in an easy ‘win’ as this. Purely functional a functional process of ending a mind.
The spell faded fast as the Fallen hit the table again with no recourse, no movement, all evidence of its existence reduced to a sack of meat housing a soul.
With a swish and flick, I drew up the body into the air let it float to the crucible and began focusing my power on another flame freezing charm. They had never been a strong suit of mine; negating heat was after all a purely mechanical process that magic tended to require more power than the input. There were ways around if, to which I employed but honestly the flame freezing charm was a poorly made spell. But it did have its uses, such as for this.
Ice blue light lanced out and hit the living corpse before I began lowering it into crucible, molten osmium frothing upward almost like it was excited for the flesh I was feeding it. It didn’t burn, it wasn’t supposed, not yet. That spell would last for nearly a half hour with the whole of Hogwarts being channeled into this ritual.
When the body was gone, hidden beneath roiling liquid heat, I began the chant.
Chanting was one of those magicks that never went out of style, though my former self did not care for them due to the expediency of them, or lack thereof. But in this case it made interacting with the potentially lethal fluid a non-issue. With each word, minute by minute, I channeled the magic with my wand and bits of my life, force that constituted my body, into forming glowing black runes. Many of which a combination of languages that produce results that no single one could accomplish. Some were common others not so much. But the last one I uttered that formed at the center was the Egyptian hieroglyph for soul and a cuneiform rune to dispel internal magic. I imagined I looked much like a singing muggle orchestra conductor.
With the final stanza coming to the end I uttered a single piece in Latin, “Compleo!”
What happened next I’m not sure I remember completely in an accurate form; much of this spell was drawn directly from the process used to create horcruxes, more specifically my diary. But I had taken a number of liberties, relying on my instinct, omnilium and more than little magical guesswork. That often was the downfall of many an average wizard, but I, Tom Riddle was far from average. That said; it was far different from my own ‘memories’ of being born. Shadows seemed to move from their origin points, centering on the now nearly erupting broth of fluidic metal, and was lancing into it. Steam was issuing at as the living body was being broken down and anything not needed by the spell was being burned off molecule by molecule.
Feeling the time had arrived, I issued my final command with my wand to direct the iridium sphere into an arcing flight right into the crucible.
A sharp crack that sounded more like a scream readied my wand with a containment spell. The atmosphere itself began to shift toward the huge mass of magic and matter. A nova of purple force hit the cauldron to hold its structure in place, followed by the shaping spell-
Silence regaled me as I realized my body had been destroyed. My only sense was the feeling of radiant heat on my binding and the cool floor.
It took me nearly a minute to reorganize myself and pull together the energy to on human form again. When I did I could feel a suffusing sense of depth staring at me. Unknowing and unknowable, almost a kinship of the very most shallow level.
When I tracked my eyes to what my other senses were telling, my legs gave out. It felt not wrong, but… hollow. Hungry. My every intent had been to create something capable of withstanding stress, and recover from it but even after I had wiped out the Fallen’s salience… there was something that could only be described as emotions. Need.
Animalistic yes but there were other qualities in it I hadn’t intended.
Frowning, I tore my eyes away from the dark chromium surface that seemed to pull everything towards it. It was only then I hadn’t even noticed what it was. So filled with presence I hadn’t even realized that my entire lab should have been filled with molten iridium and osmium.
With a deep completely pointless breath, I forced myself to confront my creation. It was a sphere that was nearly a meter in diameter and yet despite having all the burning light from it drained away, it was indeed still liquid. Runes of all types were floating across the surface, rippling. Some were from my most recent working and others from that of the Iridium ‘flight’ matrix I had designed to be the chassis for the hammer once the final shape had been decided on. More pointedly though, was that the orb still remained floating which was not supposed to be. Not after that much mass had been applied to it.
I knew for a fact that I hadn’t overestimated the weight requirements of the osmium… Right now it should have been behaving more like a balloon filled with air rather than still being completely untouched by gravity. Not a bad thing but decidedly odd.
I couldn’t proceed further, and as unfortunate as it was, any shift from plans meant a near contractual need to confer with Nealaphh as to the finishing touches and whether or not he was to increase its mass further. If this event was even remotely a step towards a pattern, the whole final product would have to be revised. Furthermore a pattern like this meant less of a need for an inhumanly strong wielder. That gave us a number of possibilities we hadn’t considered before.
I pushed myself back up with a pained grunt and purposely turned away the moment I had laid down a Monitoring Enchantment to keep me apprised of any change that happened in my absence. With that done I saw myself out with a rush of emerald flame and the words, “The Great Hall!”