Chapter One, The Swirling Tide

The highlands of Scotland remained a gray, dismal place, but for the general feeling of grief that stained the land from centuries of war and conquest there was a dismal sort of beauty to it that one could really appreciate from high above it. Bitter winds full of salt-smell from the ocean and overcast skies painting the heather-filled hinterlands in a pallet of stone gray, muddy browns, dark greens, dotted as it was with splotches of color from what sparse flowers that were hardy enough to survive here at this time of year. High above I rode an updraft of chill wind that filled my feathers and allowed me my vantage point.
My name is Marian Sophus, and I am a witch.
A damned good one, at that.
Having graduated last summer from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry I was fully aware that what I was doing might seem childish－taking an afternoon off from my searching for a Master willing to take on a new Apprentice to simply go for a fly, but sometimes a person simply needed a little height, for perspective, if nothing else.
I swooped and dove through the wind, losing altitude in a steep arch as my wings folded back only to throw them open two feet from the ground, angling myself back into the air with a sharp ‘Kee-Ya!’ of enjoyment. As a Tern animagus, essentially a sea-bird though sleeker than a simple gull and more beautiful in my not-so-humble opinion, I was built for this sort of flight. Slender wings steered me to my left in a gentle, controllable spiral towards the ground once more, though this time I pulled up roughly six feet from the ground, wings spread, and for an instant I seemingly hung there, suspended by invisible wires as, within the blink of an eye, I started to change. My body grew and lost its feathers, my beak receding, my limbs stretching and filling out, and when gravity had reasserted its hold over me and my human feet touched the ground there stood a woman at roughly five and a half feet tall. I swept a loose lock of black hair that had escaped my bun behind my ear and adjusted the frameless black-tinted glasses on my nose.
That bitter wind rushed passed me once more and without the feathers to shield me, I felt a shiver run down my spine. Quickly, I reached into the leather satchel-bag at my waist, my arm sinking in deeper than its outside appearance would suggest, only to pull back clutching an entire thick winter cloak that truly shouldn’t have fit inside and wouldn’t have without the Space-Expansion Charm (amongst others) I had layered upon its depths.
Throwing the cloak around my shoulders, I stilled, my ears perked up as the sounds of hooves sounded from a thicket of heather. I relaxed my stance as a ‘curious creature’ trotted into view. “Hello, Natty,” I greeted the African gazelle and animagus form of one of my best friends.
Much like myself, the gazelle shifted smoothly mid-step, her form blurring as she approached, rising from all fours and continuing on as a tall, statuesque, dusky-skinned witch approached, a wide smile on her face. “It is good to see you, my friend,” she said in her accented English.
I smiled as she came in for a hug. “It’s been too long,” I murmured into her shoulder as she was nearly half a foot taller than I was.
“A few weeks,” she giggled in answer, pulling back, though despite her playful tone I noted a tinge of sadness mixed with excitement at the corner of her eyes.
“What’s wrong? And how’d you find me all the way out here?”
Natty sighed and waved her wand, conjuring an ornate stone bench for us to sit on that was engraved with both Celtic knot-work as well as a prancing gazelle, a tern perched upon its antlers. “You’ve been coming here to find peace since Anne Sallow passed six months ago, Marian. When you weren’t at your family home, and your father confirmed that you hadn’t yet found a Master to learn from I figured you’d be here.”
I pulled a face at both reminders and sat down, flicking the hem of my cloak behind the bench to drape against the ground.
Following, Natty grasped my hands in hers and her lips pulled upwards. “My Portkey back to Matabeleland has been scheduled.
I grinned as her and gave her hands a squeeze. “So you were accepted into Uganda’s Auror program?”
“I got the news this morning. I’ll be leaving in a week.”
“Oh Natty－congratulations!”
Natty giggled for a moment, before the smile slipped from her face and I cocked my head in question. “Are you not happy? You’ve been talking about being an Auror since that showdown with Harlow a couple of years ago.”
“Oh I am happy, for myself, at least. But I worry for my mother. She has not mentioned it, but she has been looking at me like she will never see me again. She doesn’t want to return to Uganda and thinks that my going is like a death sentence.”
I sighed. Shaking my head. Professor Onai could be incredibly protective of her daughter, especially since the death her her husband, which was fine－a good thing, even, but sometimes I could see how her smothering chaffed Natty fiercely. It was understandable, I thought. Natty was a fully grown and exceptionally independent witch and had done very well on all her exams. At only fifteen she had aided me in combat against Theopholis Harlow himself and blasted her way through dozens of the evil blighters he commanded in Victor Rosewood's name. She had all the NEWTs to become an Auror here in Britain (As well as Officer Singer and Professor Sharp’s hand-written recommendations) but she had always talked of returning to her homeland and making a difference against all the poachers and dark wizards there, to ensure that what happened to her father never happened again.
“Natty,” I started, “your mother worries, that’s her thing. I think it’s a thing for all parents, or at least the ones worth a damn. My father worries about me, too. But the minute we graduated we became our own witches. Our decisions are our own. My opinion is that your mum’s going to worry no matter what, even if you took a comfortable, safe, Ministry job in London she’d find something to worry about, so instead of trying to allay her fears you should just focus on what you want, rather than make yourself miserable failing to make your mother happy. Become the best Auror Uganda has ever seen and maybe give your mother some grandchildren in a few years to divert her attention from yourself.”
Natty laughed wetly, though I could see her dusky cheeks flush at the joke. “Thank you Marian,” she said, wiping a tear away with the back of her index finger. “You’re a good friend.”
I nudged her. “So… How about it? Before you’re a world-famous Auror and I’m a famous Artificer, Enchanter, and Alchemist－one last time for old time’s sake?”
Natty raised an eyebrow. “Did you find something?”
I looked at her with a smirk. “Come on, Natty. It’s me. Of course I found something. A sinkhole recently opened up near Marunweem, but it’s not just any sinkhole. It uncovered a door. The Ministry’s keeping it secret but I went down there to check it out from a distance with a pair of omnioculars. It’s practically vibrating with Ancient Magic.”
“I don’t know, my friend. With you looking for a Master to learn from, and myself entering the Auror program should we be trespassing? It was different during Ranrok’s Rebellion. We were on the brink of open war that entire year in a race to keep the Repositories from the Goblins. We needed every advantage we could get. But times are peaceful now.”
“Do you really believe that, Natty?” I asked wryly. “My father hears rumors of discontent all the time. We never know when society will be plunged into chaos. I say one should never stop preparing. It’s better to have done it and be safer later, than let your skills rust and regret it when you’re looking down the shaft of a wand. Besides, unless the Ministry has someone like me in their pocket they’ll never be able to open the door－by default I don’t think they’d be able to think laterally enough to bypass it. Right now they’re just beating their skulls against it. To no avail, I might add. Besides, I’ve already spoken to the other Keepers’ portraits about it. None of them know what’s in that vault. None of them created it. So it either predates them somehow and was constructed by an unknown user of Ancient Magic… Or Isidora Morganach created it and successfully hid it from them.”
“Merlin’s Beard!”
I nodded at her stunned expression and scooted closer to her, looping an arm around her shoulders. “Exactly. Anything could be down in that vault and I trust myself to hold onto it over anyone else－especially the Ministry under Faris Spavin－the same inactive idiot that let Ranrok become such a threat that a couple of teenagers had to stop all-out war.”
Natty sighed in a resignation and I bounced a knee in place, almost ready to jump up and apparate us south, but I restrained myself and simply stood. “Will you meet me there tonight? It’ll give us both a chance to prepare. I need to get to my workshop at home and outfit myself,” I gestured down at my simple, though finely crafted robes, “these aren’t exactly made for combat or even skulking about.”
“And we both know how much you love both,” snarked Natty, standing up. “Oh very well. But try to think of a way to get us inside without hurting anyone or even making it obvious that we were there. The Ministry knows you can channel Ancient Magic. You’ll be the first suspect they will track down if the Vault is suddenly breached and cleaned out when they weren’t looking.”
I laughed and nodded. “Already thinking like an Auror. I’ll figure something out. I have a few projects conceptualized that might help.”
“Right after dusk, then.”
I nodded and Natty turned on her heel and disapparated with a sharp crack of displaced air.
I smirked.

The air in Marunweem, while still cold, was slightly warmer and slightly wetter than up north. The spit of coast that contained the hamlet of Marunweem bordered Lake Marunweem’s Eastern side. It was full of aquatic magical creatures. From my spot high in the air I could see a swarm of Grindylows in the shallows tearing at a dead dugbog. Suddenly there, on the cliff overlooking Marunweem, I saw a person materialize from nothing and I fell into a dive, keeping quiet this time. Against the darkened sky and moving as fast as I was I figured I’d be nearly invisible to whomsoever happened to look up. Besides, I was just a tern, after all. Nothing illicit happening here, people－nothing at all.
Landing on Natty’s shoulder, the dark-skinned witch barely glanced at me from her crouched position as she surveyed the hamlet below us next to a bush being swarmed by lacewing flies.
Smart choice.
While it might seem a poor idea to ‘hide’ next to something that gave off light like that, from a distance the glare from that very light would hide her better than anything short of magical invisibility.
“Twenty-three Ministry wizards…” counted Natty, grimacing. “I hope your little conceptualizations work out. I think a trip to Azkaban would look poorly on my application to the Ugandan Auror corps.”
I hopped off of Natty’s shoulder and onto the ground, shifting back into my normal human form. “It should.” I said simply, glancing over at my friend. She had changed her own robes for something easier to move in. A dark blue tunic cinched around her waist with a sash, dark trousers, and half-shin boots. On her forearms were a pair of leather and steel bracers I had crafted and enchanted for her last year. I was wearing an off-white, open-necked tunic of my own, as well as a dragon-hide corset and bracers. There was a dark blue sash around my waist, the excess fabric hanging down from my left hip as well as a belt containing several pouches full of… interesting things. I also had several metal loops attached to my belt from which hung leather netting containing different potions from my stores that I might need. Tucked into my right boot was a dagger, the blade engraved with over a dozen runes and layered in several enchantments that all worked rather well with each other－ever-sharp, durability, lock-picking, cleaning, and even a function that would heat the blade until it glowed red hot if I activated it. Useful for both utility and as a weapon. I’ve even used it to cauterize a poisoned wound I had received killing Pergit during Ranrok’s Rebellion.
Natty glanced at my shirt and snorted. “You need to get over your dislike of properly fastened shirts, my friend. Your… Everything is going to fall out, and believe me you have a lot to let fall.”
I rolled my eyes, but I shifted my tunic a bit higher all the same. “No thank you. I hated wearing the Hogwarts uniform for that exact reason. Blouses buttoned all the way up to my neck and too-tight ties. Truly dismal, Natty－especially when they really started to grow. I felt like I was suffocating.”
Natty patted her trim, petite chest and smirked. “I wouldn’t know.”
I pinched her on her arm. “Anyway, moving passed my… endowments… let me show you how we’re going to access this Vault without the Ministry knowing.”
Making a gesture with her hand down to the collection of government employees milling about Marunweem, Natty said, “So show me, great Marian－oh brightest star of Hogwarts.”
Ignoring the snark, I reached into one of my pouches, my entire hand sinking inside, and pulled out a brass Sphere about half the size of a quaffle, the mouth of the pouch having expanded enough for it’s removal. It was a pretty thing, highly burnished and covered in intricate decorative knot-work that hid the runes tied to the enchantments I had placed upon it. “Years ago I saw a memory in which the Keepers changed the weather around Feldcroft utilizing Ancient Magic. They completely transformed it from a drought-ridden wasteland into the beautiful hamlet it is to this day. This,” I tossed the Sphere a few inches upwards and let it fall back into my hand, “should do the same, and be less obvious than me standing here and shooting spells into the sky. It contains a set of enchantments that can be… pre-configured to alter the local atmosphere. I have this thing set to ‘torrential downpour’. We’ll drive the Ministry workers inside and sneak into the Vault. I should be able to close it down again with Ancient Magic once we’re inside. They’ll still be unable to enter and if this Vault is anything like the other ones there should be a passage out at the end.”
Natty shook her head and sighed. “Why are you having trouble finding a Master if you can already create things like this? For that matter how did you create this device?”
I shrugged, though I couldn’t help but frown in bitterness. “I’m starting to think that most Enchanters are either intimidated by my role in the Rebellion… Or they don’t take me seriously because I didn’t get the full Hogwarts experience, despite my OWLs and NEWTs.” I sighed. “As for how I created it… The Keepers are a font of information when they’re in the mood to share it. Apparently my education with them was rushed initially considering Ranrok’s war. Ideally they would’ve taught me many ways to use Ancient Magic in facets of the Art that didn’t involve killing in between my Trials. According to Niamh FitzGerald, enchantments set on an item utilizing Ancient Magic as a power source last much longer than a normal enchantment with little upkeep required. It’s why complex spells like all the suits of armor they had created, Rackham’s Vault, the Trials, and the Map Chamber still work as perfectly as the day they were created. With Ranrok dead and myself not having to sneak out of the castle almost nightly to fight for my right to simply live in peace… Well I had plenty of free time to learn from their portraits.”
Natty laid a hand on my shoulder. “Listen… If you can’t find a Master in a year I think you should just… Leave. Travel the world. Most go on their Grand Tour anyways. A few years away from Britain can help. It will give you more experience to attract a Master and let the clamor of the Rebellion die down a bit more.”
I grimaced and instead of answering, I looked down once more at the gathered Ministry personnel. Drawing my wand, I glanced at Natty who realized that it was time to start our little covert heist because she slid her own wand from its sheath. Tapping the device once, I injected a little Ancient Magic to set the enchantments to activate. There was a quiet clicking sound and the knot-work on the Sphere started to shift, twirling around the device like a gyroscope as though unlocking it, and then the mechanisms inside set in the appropriate orientation and the Sphere split along its equator and wings not unlike a golden snitch unfurled from inside it, though instead of flapping like a bird they started to spin like the blades of a fan. There was a building whir and my creation sped off into the sky like a comet falling in reverse.
I just had to hope that no one looked up for the five seconds it took for the Sphere to pierce the lowest clouds and obscure itself from view. Still, this was the better, more subtle option for distracting the Ministry and clearing our way to the Vault. Natty and I looked skyward when the Ministry workers present failed to react to the rising device and within moments the chill wind became even colder, blowing more intensely. The clouds built up over the course of a few moments, thickening until flashes of light started to shine down from artificially created lightning followed by the boom of thunder. I heard a cry from someone below and I smiled in satisfaction when the tide from Lake Marunweem rippled harder. That swarm of Grindylows scattered, heading for the safety of the deeper waters and then the first drops started to fall. Slowly at first, the Ministry workers looking up shocked at the speed with which the weather had changed, but then the rain started to fall heavier, thick sheets of icy water dousing the hamlet and I tapped myself on the head, casting my strongest Impervious Charm with Natty following my lead, thin layers of warm air surrounding us and deflecting the artificial storm.
“You’re kind of scary sometimes,” yelled Natty, her voice partially drowned out by the noise of the rain and wind.
I grinned, both at the words of my friend as well as the sight of all those Ministry wizards rushing for the shelter they had set up down the beach to live in while they failed to open the Vault.
“Come on,” I shouted, reaching out and placing a hand on Natty’s shoulder. We stood and I disapparated us down to the door, directly inside the sinkhole to hide us from sight while my storm hid the crack of my apparition, disguising it as just another storm-sound.
Now that we were closer to the door I could feel and see the Ancient Magic permeating the hidden structure. I could also see that the make of the doors was different than the swirling blue marble, slate gray stone, and gold that the Keepers preferred. Constructed of harsh black stone inlaid with a silvery metal forming the image of a gnarled and ancient tree bereft of its leaves. Nestled in its roots was the skeletal remains of an unknown human. I hadn’t seen that through my omnioculars as the image quality wasn’t the best on my model (something to look into improving).
I still wasn’t sure who constructed this Vault, but I was leaning towards an unknown user of Ancient Magic. After all, Isidora Morganach was trained by the Keepers and most likely would’ve used their ‘style’. Besides, right up until the end of her life at the wand of San Bakar, Isidora hadn’t considered herself Evil. She had thought she was helping others with her experiments and the design on that door didn’t seem to suggest a mere ‘misguided’ soul. Still, that was a question without an answer until we got inside and looked around. Placing my wand against the door, I fed it my own reserves of Ancient Magic, energy rushing down my arm, through my wand, and into the structure. I felt the doors lapping at it, tasting it, before yielding to it, cracking open and inwards whilst letting out a puff of stale air.
“Once more into the breach we go!”
“Marian… Let us just get inside, please? Even with the Impervious Charm it’s cold and I’m slipping in this mud.”
I blew a puff of air between my lips and entered the Vault, Natty following behind me, and as we crossed the threshold torches lit along the walls with green flames, revealing a set of stairs leading deeper into the earth.
Strange… The door was still open, but inside the Vault the sounds of the storm were silenced.
Shaking my head, I pulled the doors fully closed and stoked my reserves of Ancient Magic, casting first a powerful Locking Charm with a murmured incantation, and then an Anti-Alohomora Charm for good measure.
That should do well enough.
“Well, we’re inside,” said Natty Dryly, “now we just need to get passed who knows whatever defenses the creator of this Vault placed, find whatever is being hidden here, and hope there’s another exit.”
“A grand adventure.” I agreed whole-heartedly.
“I was being sarcastic, my friend.”
“I know.”
Natty shoved my shoulder and I laughed, the sound echoing strangely. “Alright, lets get going,” I said, waving my wand and conjuring two orbs of light that floated above us to augment the glowing green flames as we descended the stairs deeper into the Vault, out footsteps muted by the black stone walls all around us.
On we went, simply going downwards for nearly two minutes, wands held aloft and ready before we arrived at a landing that opened into a wider chamber. I flicked my wand and sent my two orbs of light off into the distance where they hung near the ceiling casting their pale rays over a wider distance, but even with that the furthest stretches of the room were still hidden in shadow. I could hear dripping water and I figured we must be somewhere under Lake Marunweem. The stone walls were slick and there were several standing puddles on the roughly hewn stone floor. More of that strange silvery metal was inlaid upon several pillars that ran from the cavern’s floor to ceiling.
“What on earth…” murmured Natty.
I turned to her to see that she had moved off to the side. She was looking downwards and I realized that the floor and wall never actually met as there was a deep trough holding brackish water of an unknown depth like a foot-wide moat running around the circumference of the chamber.
Taking a step closer to her, I noted a reddish light around my feet as several wisps of Ancient Magic rose and drifted closer to the center of the room. “Natty,” I called, eyeing the corrupted wisps with a frown of concentration on my face, “I wouldn’t get too close to that. If I were an ancient practitioner of Dark Magic I’d hide something nasty in the water…”
Natty flinched and took a few steps away from the borders of the floor. “A fair point. Whoever built this was definitely not a Light-Wizard… Or even gray, I suspect.”
“Yes…”
Joining me, Natty of course not able to see the wisps as I could, simply raised an eyebrow, though I noticed her tapping her wand on her leg nervously. “What now? Do you still wish to see where this goes?”
I grinned, though it was warier than it had been before we entered. “There’s a nexus of corrupted Ancient Magic here, like what Ranrok and his followers wielded. In the center of the platform, in fact. Even now, more than before, I want to see what this place was built for. If it was constructed by Dark Wizards, as seems likely, then we should ‘beat’ this place and make sure it can’t harm someone.”
“I don’t see how it could harm someone,” countered Natty, “you’re the only one with the ability to enter this place properly.”
I shook my head and readjusted my grip on my wand. “I can think of at least three ways those Ministry workers could have bypassed the door to enter this vault without my ability to see and interact with Ancient Magic. No we need to discover what this place is and why it was built and then shut it down so it’s safe.”
“Very well,” agreed Natty, her face set with the resolve she had gained during our fifth year at Hogwarts.
“Right…” I moved deeper into the chamber, towards that oozing, bubbling, nexus of Ancient Magic. The red wisps started to swirl as I got closer, as though they were sampling my power and answering to it－trying to latch onto me, attacking me in order to… consume me.
Magic was a choice, this I knew. While you had to be born with the ability to wield it, it was up to the user to determine how it was used, why it was used, and when it was used. Professor Fig had imparted that lesson to me inadvertently the day we discovered Professor Rackham’s vault.
Someone had chosen to turn this incredible gift into something twisted.
Bringing up my lessons with the Keepers, I stoked my own reserves of energy in response, the air in the chamber gaining a strange weight in response as a silvery blue light lit at the tip of my wand. I slashed the length of bone-white walnut through the air and blew the corrupted wisps back with a quiet grunt as I approached the nexus, kneeling down and placing my off-hand against the wet stone.
“M-Marian?”
Forced to ignore her, I dug deep into my power, so deep that my hand itself started to glow, a blip of silver purity within the nexus of black and red corruption left behind by whomever constructed this place. Growling, I spied the wisps of light reforming and rushing back to me from where I blasted them away. Letting out a yell of effort I pulsed my power into the nexus, disturbing its own currents, and the wisps froze in place. They shuddered, letting off sparks of mixed red and blue, the nexus and myself fighting for dominance. I injected more of my power into the nexus, flooding it with properly controlled and purified Ancient Magic that pushed against the corruption.
I was trying to draw that evil out, subsume it with my light, purify it and then take it into myself like I had countless times with the nexuses the Keepers had left behind all over the Highlands for one like me, but it resisted. Powerfully so. I didn’t want to know what the Dark Wizard or Witch who created the Vault had done to defile this much Ancient Magic, but I hadn’t seen or felt such a density of evil since my final battle with Ranrok over the last Repository.
The Nexus itself was starting to let out crackling arcs of lightning now, visible even to those without my ability if Natty’s hastily erected Shield Charm was anything to go by. They struck randomly, cracking into the stone walls and pillars but I could finally tell I was making headway against it when the cracks and pops and streamers of magically produced electricity slowly weakened and my light started to bleed through the nexus, clearing away the red and black energy and replacing it with my own, until finally, the nexus of evil blasted apart with a burst of light and a wave of concussive force that almost knocked the air from my lungs, but when the light cleared, I was kneeling next to a swirling blue vortex of purified Ancient Magic while wisps of cleansed energy danced about the chamber like lacewing flies.
I let out a gust of air as I laughed quietly. My hand felt twitchy, my fingers numb, but I had done it.
It had been a technique developed by Percival Rackham near the end of his life. He hadn’t been happy with the way the Repositories had simply shuffled the problem off for future generations but recognized that he was too old and far too weak to really cleanse them himself. Thankfully, his portrait talked me through the process. Essentially you ‘dilute’ the evil with your own energy while severing the corruption, cutting it away like an infected limb. This had been the first time I had used ‘Purification’ in such a manner, but it had worked a treat.
I’d have to get the old portrait something nice as means of thanking him.
“Marian…” whispered Natty, sounding a bit nervous, “are you okay? Your nose is bleeding…”
I sniffled and wiped my nose on the back of my hand before I grinned over at her. “Never better. I could have absorbed the corrupted nexus, but didn’t want to take in all that… evil. I had to purify it first.”
Standing, I dusted off my knees and glanced back down at the purified vortex. It almost seemed out of place in such a den if darkness, but it wouldn’t be around for very long. Raising my hand I formed a connection with the vortex, but before I could take it in, the chamber started to rumble, both Natty and myself stumbling in place before we managed to regain our balance. Then the water of the moat bordering us started to churn, releasing a foul scent from its depths, of stagnancy and decay and a mottled grey, scabby, almost desiccated hand burst up with a wet splash, then another and another, followed by dozens of hands all around us. Then the screams started, those hair-raising screams ripping themselves from decayed throats. “Inferius!” I cried stepping back from the vortex and brandishing my wand, Natty doing much the same.
The first undead servitor to clear the lip of the moat received a Blasting Curse that burst into a ball of fire against its head, but I wasn’t done with just that single attack, for from the explosion burst tongues of flame under my control that struck out against the surrounding undead, drawing more of those horrible screams.
Natty, too, was active as she conjured a burst of flame from the tip of her wand that reached out from her spot near the center of the room and collided with the stone walls, and thanks to the way they were shaped the fire was almost funneled down into that moat, burning more of them before they could climb out.
Unfortunately there were too many and they were too spread out to target them all at once. Instinctively Natty and I stood back-to-back as we sent waves of fire out towards the undead but, inevitably, one broke through, and then another and another and another until a dozen of the shambling bodies were rushing at us, forcing Natty and I to separate and fight on our own.
I ducked under the swipe of one, only to have to throw myself to the side to dodge another as I brandished my wand and blasted both of them back with a Banishing Charm. On the other side of the room, I saw Natty remove the head from one with a well-placed Severing Charm, only to be tackled from behind, letting out a scream of terror, and I had just enough time to Summon the thing off her and Banish it towards another Inferius knocking them both into one of the pillars that supported the cavern. Dust fell from the ceiling at the impact and the dark stone of the pillar cracked with a sound like the shot from a muggle rifle.
From the corner of my vision saw a hand coming down, fingernails rotten and chipped, and my wand was up and an opaque bubble of magic formed around myself just in time to block the strike, and then burst outwards in a shockwave that threw that Inferius and three more away, and with a bit of breathing room I reached into my pocket and produced another one of my Devices. It was shaped like a chess piece, a knight to be exact, but I held it aloft and yelled out it’s activation phrase, “PRIMA SIGNA!”
Tossing the piece away, it landed with a clatter and started to both glow with Ancient Magic and then grow, the marbled stone it was constructed from turning to a magically strengthened brass-like alloy, and when it was done a fully formed knight stood there sentinel in burnished metal armor, blue light shining through the small gaps in its plating. It drew its sword, raised its shield, and charged at the throng of undead, its steps echoing heavily.
“What is that!?” yelled Natty, glancing at me as she neatly blasted an Inferius back before setting it on fire.
“The same sort of guardian the Keepers used to guard their Trials, with my own enhancements!” I answered, keeping an eye on my creation and friend as I slammed two Inferius into the ground with enough force that it’d shatter bones on a living opponent.
The Knight, my Vanguard’s, bucket helm opened up and the blue light from within its body shone through brighter with a thrumming sound and coalesced into a singular beam that it swept across the room, gouging a trench in the floor, bisecting half a dozen reanimated bodies with a scorching heat, as well as carving through yet more pillars which fell to the ground and scattered with a cacophonous boom, and I was forced to blast a large chunk of rock away before it could hit me.
Unfortunately, those columns weren’t merely decorative, as the room started to shake and cracks opened up in the ceiling, huge chunks of stone falling to the floor.
“Damn it!” yelled Natty, catching one of those falling stones with a Levitation Charm and Banishing it away. “We need to get out of here!”
I grimaced, but with all the fire we had used the furthest reaches of the room had been thoroughly illuminated. There was no door ahead, but then I remembered the vortex of purified Ancient Magic and I rushed over towards it, throwing more Blasting Curses to blow apart every Inferius between me and it. Kneeling down, I pressed my hand to the floor and siphoned the energy left behind there, and doing so caused the ground to tremor again as the stone beneath me shifted like solid water, bubbling and churning and from the floor rose an archway of that bleak dark rock with that silvery metal that traced up in lines that formed vines and blooms of nightshade. There was a rushing of energy and that archway filled with a shimmer of magic and I knew exactly what it was for the Keepers used very similar magic in their Trials. “Natty! It’s a portal! Come here, quick!”
It hurt to leave my Vanguard behind to distract the Inferius as it was, at the moment, one of a kind, but our lives were more important, and the last thing I saw before Natty rushed through the Portal and dragged me with her was another blast of concentrated energy from the Knight’s open bucket helm scattering a seemingly endless tide of bodies as the chamber broke apart around it.