The eight-character moustache goblin refused Ian's request with an awkward smile.
The little wizard fished out a bit more information.
Of course.
Perhaps the eight-character moustache goblin also wanted to disclose this to him in the first place.
"Let's go check out my... my family's vault first."
For the first time, Ian sat in a Gringotts cart. He'd only experienced such a vehicle in the movie and from William's descriptions—this really was the kind of wild ride that could rattle your brainstem loose.
Narrow and cramped.
Utterly basic.
It wasn't just the total lack of suspension—when it was moving, the noise it made was downright irritating, almost like nails scraping a chalkboard. Ian never got carsick, but this ancient, run-down racket really left him speechless.
As the cart wove through the labyrinthine tunnels, Ian could feel chills rushing in from every direction, forming a stark contrast with the warm, bright Diagon Alley above.
"Careful, sir, and keep quiet—just ahead is the dragon guardian zone." Right then, the cart suddenly slowed, and the goblin guide whispered a reminder to Ian.
His words had barely landed—
When several enormous dragons came into view.
They were coiled up in magically reinforced caverns, lazily shifting their hulking bodies and occasionally releasing deep, majestic roars that echoed throughout the underground realm. Even though these dragons were bound by powerful magic, their presence was enough to inspire a nameless fear and awe in most people.
At least, when you heard the dragon's roar.
The eight-character moustache goblin was visibly more nervous.
"You're impressively calm."
He watched in genuine admiration as Ian even pulled out a camera and began snapping photos of the three-headed giant dragon—not even adult wizards rarely had such courage in the presence of dragons.
"I actually raised a giant dragon myself—bit on the skinny side, but even bigger than these guys." Ian snapped dozens of pictures in succession, knowing that Hagrid loved these half-blood dragons.
"Uh..."
The eight-character moustache goblin couldn't quite process how "skinny" and "huge" could possibly be used to describe the same thing. In awkward silence, he kept working the cart deeper underground.
The cart was fast.
High-speed rail fast.
Even so, Ian found himself chilled for what felt like an eternity. One vault after another whipped by, until finally, the eight-character moustache goblin brought him to a rarely visited section.
Vaults no longer appeared from time to time on the sides of the cave—just a single, incredibly long, narrow passageway sloping ever downward. Ian was ready to bail at any second, preparing Black Phoenix for Apparition, just in case.
He was on full alert, but things unfolded without any surprises.
The cart, with Ian and his goblin guide, came to a gentle stop. Silence—deeper and more solemn than he'd ever known—enveloped them. The cave's ancient, damp walls seemed almost forgotten by time. In the growing dimness, old inscriptions emerged and faded in the faint light, chiseled onto the stone in a mysterious, ancient tongue.
"Kind of looks like... that magic rune language I can't read," Ian mused, trying to identify them. These inscriptions were far more than decoration—they were Gringotts' most powerful underground magical defense, bar none. As the eight-character moustache goblin had mentioned earlier, the runes could sense and block any unauthorized intruder.
Except—
For Ian and his goblin half-slave, these deadly runes seemed non-existent; no reaction at all. The eight-character moustache goblin's eyes were complicated as he took this in.
"So it really is this way... Of course, it has to be this way..."
He muttered almost too softly to hear.
Contracts passed down by bloodlines—that was the key to so much he knew, and the reason the chicken-head goblin had rushed to find him right away.
"Is this where you open it?" Ian couldn't interpret the runes on the wall, but he recognized the alchemical mechanism on the vault's bronze door, so he didn't bother to ask more.
With that—
The little wizard simply raised his magic wand and pointed it at the bronze gate. No spell, just raw magical power—he pressed his wand to the door and poured his magic directly into it.
This really was the best kind of authentication. Just as there's no such thing as a perfectly black crow, there's no way two wizards have identical magic power.
And then—
His magic surged like a sinuous dragon, winding along the door's carved patterns. The runes on the door seemed to light up, each segment glowing with gentle, mysterious light. The gleam wove into intricate designs throughout the cave, each one carrying its own ancient and potent magic.
As the brilliance spread, the gate began to rumble, a deep roar as if the whole chamber trembled in anticipation. The eight-character moustache goblin quickly held the wall to steady himself.
At last—
After a thunderous rumble—
The bronze gate slowly opened.
The little wizard's suspicions were thus completely confirmed.
"Please, go right ahead—we goblins have no right to enter your vault." The eight-character moustache goblin was already kneeling, knocking his head reverently to Ian a few times.
"Vault? That's a damn good name!" Ian held his breath and peeked inside—inside, there was actually a chandelier. Who knows how many years that chandelier had been lit, its glow as natural as sunlight, illuminating every corner of the vault with perfect clarity.
"No money-printing machines? Really?"
Ian stepped inside, an incredulous look on his face. Not only had he not found the legendary treasure he'd hoped for, but he couldn't even find a single Golden Galleon in the vault.
No!
He hadn't even found a single copper Knut! The little wizard, unwilling to give up, ransacked the vault, but nothing—even remotely valuable—turned up.
All he found—
Were piles of seemingly worthless broken junk.
"They call this a 'vault'? I've changed, I must have changed! I used to be generous—now I'm stingy as hell!" The little wizard couldn't believe "Medivh" was such a cheapskate that he even skimped on himself.
Just look! This vault, enormous as an international airport, was filled with nothing but heaps of possibly-precious-but-definitely-junky scrap metal—not a single glowing gem anywhere.
No wonder they needed such a big lightbulb—otherwise you'd think the place was just a landfill. The bright vault was littered with all sorts of dull, battered weapons and armor.
Some things were placed on shelves.
For example, a trident so mottled you could hardly tell it was metal, a few necklaces and rings whose color had faded, and a shield that seemed to have its whole face encrusted with dull stones.
They might've been magical items once, but now they were all in various states of disrepair. Ian almost suspected some Oliger was involved, because on plenty of the weapons and busted armor, he spotted faint gold-colored grime sticking to them. That might actually have been the shiniest thing in the whole room.
Under the "sunlight,"
The gleaming shimmers came from those weird liquids—they looked unaffected by time, or as if, despite all the years, they'd never faded at all.
"At first, I thought it was just Golden Galleon residue," Ian sighed, slumping down on a stone stool inside the vault, surveying the hundreds or thousands of pieces of junk all around him.
"This spear looks mostly intact—but even the grip is covered in Oliger." Ian pulled on his Dragon Skin Gloves before taking down a long spear from a rack nearby.
And as he'd said—
This long spear, glowing faint with mysterious metallic light, had a handle where the wood was stained with golden filth—but at least none of it seemed to stick to Ian's Dragon Skin Gloves.
"Are these runes?"
Only after grabbing it did Ian realize that the spear's shaft bore very shallow, almost rusted-looking magical runes—the kind of Runic Magic Runes he was most familiar with.
"Whisper to me, and I shall end your enemies."
The little wizard translated the runes on the spear's shaft.
The next moment—
The runes on the metal spear almost seemed to light up, but halfway there, they sputtered out as if they'd short-circuited—it was just too badly damaged.