Power Stone Goal: 98/300 (For extra chapter)
I didn't post yesterday because I was dead tired and was slightly inebriated. We're back now though! So I hope you enjoy.
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Stepping out of the Fury, the first thing I noted was the abundant level of flora that surrounded the landing site. Plants ranging from flowers to weeds grew in abundance throughout the glen, the flowers themselves sprouting in hundreds of different shades and hues. Small animals leapt from branch to branch up in the high jungle canopy above.
None of the animals looked remotely similar to Earth's natural inhabitants but that just gave the world a little more character in my eyes. Speaking of differences between Earth and Lehon, the Ziggurat that towered above the glen was gleaming in the mid-day sunlight, the golden exterior only muted by the overgrown vines and trees that sought to smother it.
Tearing my gaze away from the ziggurat, I began scoping our surroundings more thoroughly. The terrain was certainly tropical and exceedingly moist. The trees grew high and long but lacked a certain width to them that would be the norm back on Earth. No insects were present as far as I could tell... It almost felt like a paradisiacal version of a rain forest...
"Master, where are you going to place the portal?" Barriss asked innocently as her rebreather modulated her voice into a deeper cadence.
"Here is good enough, don't need it anywhere fancy... They were designed to survive extreme conditions let alone a bit of wetness." I answered.
With a small flick of my wrists the chat screen opened and the inventory section was displayed before me. Looking through the relatively limited storage space I soon found the small animated image of a Stargate, a little wave of animated water coming from the centre of it as I hovered my finger over the icon.
Some type of bird chirped as I jutted my finger through the icon and triggered the dumping process of the inventory system. The inventory system was something we hadn't really had time to mess with as a group since we were all so busy... Fortunately it resembled the inventories from popular games like Guild Wars 2 or World of Warcraft. I had only found out the chat's capability of holding larger objects when I received Apollo as a reward, which wasn't actually that long ago now that i was musing over it...
'Damn time flies by...'
The stargate popped out right in front of the screen, the bottom half of it sinking into the muddy dirt in front of me due to its natural weight. A slight concentration of my force powers and I was able to ensure it was locked into place. Giving it a final check over with my molecular manipulation, to confirm that it was still transmitting electrons; which it was, I finally attempted to switch it on.
A chevron glowed powerfully as I siphoned Hypermatter from the Fury to charge the process. Another one initiated before a distinct whirring began emitting from the internal components seeking a connection. One final chevron was activated when an instant pool of water-like exotic particles formed inside the containment field and then splashed outwards in a massive tidal wave.
Barriss fell on her ass as she attempted to back away from the exotic matter, her eyes wide and her expression amazed. I simple basked in the achievement, my senses slithering inside the wormhole and detecting the other side, the top level of the Chrysler...
"YES!" I pumped a fist and did a little jig before rushing up towards the event horizon of my work. My watch pinged powerfully, the animated figure coming to life, as Apollo's program became able to connect.
"Boss, you did it! Now we can go to other universes without your help!"
I chuckled at Apollo's happiness.
"Yeah! Now I just need to test something real quick..." I walked over to a small collection of rocks that were gathered at the base of a tree not too far away and picked them up.
Rushing back, I very quickly threw each one through and awaited Apollo's report. It didn't even take thirty seconds before my watched buzzed in excitement.
"The three rocks came through boss! The Stargate apparently erased the potential danger of the process you used!" A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead as I heard him talk about the danger of using the process...
'It must have been at the bottom of that paper I discarded...' Nervously laughing I simply discarded the awkwardness in my mind. It had all worked out in the end, that's all that matters.
"Boss, I think we should try to send a droid through from our end... Then we can start testing living animals once we've confirmed non-living matter can pass through."
"Sure, give it a shot. I'll let you run the tests whilst I do some stuff over here."
"You got it boss... Oh, could you also make an AI for the base in that universe? I don't think I'll be able to split my focus between universes." His tone suggested he was haggard and worn, something that was utterly false.
"You could run hundreds of operations simultaneously, let alone the scarce few that might pop up here... Be honest, you just want to dedicate your processing power to watching anime and cartoons."
He groaned.
"Fineeee~... You're no fun, you know that?"
I huffed.
"Yeah, whatever... Look, I was going to make a sibling for you anyway, I suppose I could make one here to start capitalizing on the wealth of information we have over here at our fingertips."
"PLEASE NAME HER ARTMEIS!!! I want a twin goddammit!"
"NoPe~! I'm gonna call her Hestia, just to fuck with you."
The response I got back was more of a binary screech than any comprehensible noise. I decided to end the chat whilst he flipped out and walked over to Barriss, who by this time had already stood back up and was staring at the portal with a sense of awe and caution.
"So... you ready to train?" A beautiful smile lit her entire face a bright verdant green.
'She's way too cute...' I thought as I watched her start practically bouncing around in excitement.
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12 Grimmauld Place, London England...
The house was silent this morning, Harry noted. It was too silent.
Ever since he had kicked the old wizard from the wards and subjugated his Fidelius a few of the older members of the Order had treated him coldly. Molly was the first to show this coldness after she returned from a meeting at Hogwarts. The next was Moody who showed an increased level of caution and paranoia around him. Finally there was Remus and he was just acting awkward and mildly annoyed about something.
He checked the wards to see if anything was wrong inside the house. Only Sirius and Tonks were inside at the current moment. Frowning, Harry slunk out of bed and got dressed, stepping out of his room and down the stairs towards the shared bedrooms of the Weasleys.
Opening the door to their section he was met with stark silence and an empty room. No luggage was present, the beds were utterly tody and clean, it was as if they had never been here at all. Harry's gaze gained a hardness that wasn't too dissimilar to Voldemort's when he dealt with incompetence or stupidity.
'So they chose a side...' With that sombre thought spelunking down his mind he turned and slammed the door behind him, the force and magic itself almost screeching in anger in sympathy of his emotions.
With a controlled level of malice Harry strut into the kitchen and lowered himself onto one of the chairs. "Kreature, I need breakfast." The Elf popped into the room immediately and bowed low, popping away a singular second later.
Banging and clanging echoed from the kitchen proper as he roughly grabbed a newspaper and began reading the columns. Not much was being reported in the media as of late, it seemed... Ever since it was reported that Grindelwald had broken containment there was a distinct lack of information flowing outwards from central Europe.
Shaking his head, Harry decided to flip pages and read about the Wizengamot; the political stage of Magical Britain. The Greengrasses were promoting a bill to end discrimination against werewolves... The Abbotts had been calling for a change of Chief Warlock... Amelia Bones was being called upon to be the next Minister for Magic. All in all, it wasn't any different than when he left. The paper was lacking his name inside of it however, an oddity for British Magical news...
"Here Master Black..." Kreature floated a plate full of bacon and eggs atop it onto the table whilst a second plate filled with fruits lightly settled in the middle of the table.
"Thank you Kreature. Please go wake up Sirius for me, the old dog doesn't need any more sleep." The Elf grinned evilly before popping away, a distant scream sounding from upstairs a minute later.
Finishing breakfast as fast as he could, Harry contemplated what he needed to do for the day. Scoffing down food with considerable gusto, he quickly finished his morning ritual and stood. With his wand in hand he tidied himself, brushed his teeth and set off towards the front door... Sirius would be down soon but he knew that the old dog would just waste the day away if he stayed so he decided to drop into Diagon Alley early.
With a muted fizzle his figure warped in on itself and then unfolded itself just outside the Leaky Cauldron. Stepping forwards with more confidence than he's had in a long time, Harry pushed the front door of the tavern open, bringing several sets of eyes towards him.
Silence spread like a cancer throughout the room, several Wizards and Witches dropping their cutlery or flagons of ale. By the time he reached the middle of the room the only noise that could be heard from the Leaky Cauldron was the incessant whining of an orange cat that was trying to bum some food off a couple middle eastern Wizards who were playing a game of Wizarding chess.
"Harry Potter...?"
"But he died??? Didn't he?"
"Yeah...yeah he did..."
"They'a saying he wen' through the veil!"
Harry paused at the whispered questions and murmured words that were leaking out as he passed.
"The tales of my death have been greatly exaggerated, I assure you... Now, have a good day, I have business at Gringotts." Nodding his head cordially he stepped through the side door near the back of the tavern and walked through the alleyway, watching as a witch tapped the code onto the bricked wall at the end of the small street and stepped through, the now opened, wall.
He followed in the mature witch's footsteps and quickly stepped through the open entrance, walking out into the Alley proper. Naturally, being as early as he was, he had some time to kill... Thus he wandered out through the alleyway and just window shopped.
...
There were many interesting businesses around the alley, he noticed after half an hour of looking through windows. Shops that sold watched were semi-common and professed their ability in guaranteeing a proper morning ritual was upheld... Then there were the clothing stores that sold all manner of wears in a multitude of different materials, magical or mundane. Following them were stores that sold curios or nick-knacks, some of which were rather odd; like a small doll that apparently liked to untie shoelaces?
He eventually stopped window shopping when he found a store that sold eye-wear. The exterior of the store was rather plain and simple, only having a single window to see the products they were offering and being of plain oak wood with no paint or anything of distinction. The wears were what attracted Harry however, because inside the display were several sets of glasses that looked beyond wicked and supposedly had a list of enchantments that could be placed upon them in short order.
One particular set had rather thin lenses with zero frame barring the nose pads and the bridge that connected the two lenses together. The glass itself was tinted a dull crimson and that small engravings on the edges that created small clouds to project out and around the side of the eye. The clouds themselves apparently served the purpose of ensuring you never got dry-eye or any particulates inside of your eyes.
Another set had a butterfly pattern imprinted onto the lenses, the frame following in the footsteps of the previous set in that there wasn't one. The butterfly pattern, externally, seemed to flutter and move, bending ever so slightly around the head to allow full coverage of the eyes... They almost looked like sci-fi visors except they were decidedly magical.
The final pair that caught his eye however was a set of monocles that were made of pure gold and platinum, engraved with thousands of small runes and were tinted a dark green. These actually had arms that extended behind the ears but they were entirely held together upon the nose by magic... They even had small interlocking chains of gold that hung from the corners of the lenses and wrapped back around the underside of the ear up onto the rear of the arms.
Pressing the door open and walking inside he found a comfortable sitting room that was almost entirely barren, the only exception being a small puppy that was laying comfortably over a leather seat.
"Good morning, welcome to Magnolia's Magical Monocles, what can I do for you today?" A young, pretty, girl around 5'9 said cheerfully from behind the counter, her auburn hair bouncing in time with her cheer.
"Ah, well, I saw the display outside and was hoping to get a new set of glasses with as much useful stuff as I could get..." he finished lamely, his confidence leaking away a little as he noticed how awkward the room felt.
"Wonderful! We can help with that straight away! Now, can you show me which one you were interested in? Or do you perhaps want a custom one...?" Harry was taken a little off guard under her deluge.
"Ah, I want it to sort of fit my theme, i guess...? It'd be cool If I could have something to do with basilisks on my glasses, since I killed one in the past..."
He started speaking to himself halfway through, his mind working through some ideas he had.
"LOVE IT! We could do such a cool Basilisk-theme monocle for you or pair of glasses! Imagine the frame of the lenses having a moving Basilisk that acts on detected emotions in your surroundings... Ooo the possibilities!"
Harry chuckled.
"I would like them to also have some sort of coloured lenses, maybe green? Maybe red? I don't know, I'm kind of struggling between my like for Green and house unity..."
"Hah! So a Gryffindor then! Well, that's easy... You'll go for green lenses and we can make the frames golden. Then if you want we can add a chain that loops around one side that is crimson or burgundy."
A grin slid onto his face at the concept. He nodded excitedly.
"That sounds great. Could I also see what enchantments are available and their price?"
The receptionist quickly grabbed some papers off the desk and splayed them out on the top of the desk, showing him several hundred enchantments and prices. She pointed to the first one with alacrity.
"This one consists of all the enchantments we recommend to get regardless of price." Harry noticed the Impervious, self-mending, returning, adjusting and health enchantments immediately. She pointed to a second parchment.
"The options on this one can be important, so I suggest you have a thorough look through them..." He took a look again and spotted several enchantments that sounded perfect for him; notably: See-invisibility, Aura Detection, Movement Detection, Sense enhancement, X-ray vision, Heat-vision, Lie-Detection, Reaction Enhancement, Hand-eye coordination enhancement and magical focus creation...
"Wait! Glasses can be used like a wand?!?!" The woman giggled.
"Of course! Down the street they sell rings that can be used like wands... Wands are just the more popular and precise focus available to Wizards and Witches." He was flabbergasted at having been in the dark at such a concept.
"I want them all." Her eyes lit up in reaction to his words.
"Ohh, I knew you were a good customer as soon as you came in!" She grabbed up the papers and stacked them again before grabbing a form and quickly filling it out.
"Because you're paying so much we're going to throw in some basic security enchantments and maintenance enchantments that go beyond what we usually offer... Also, we're going to give you a discount due to the volume your buying at, say a flat 20%?" She continued.
Harry was about to wave her offers away but she interrupted.
"Good!" She shit him coy a smirk before turning and placing the form in a small tube at the back of the shop. "Come back in four hours and everything should be finished!"
With a sigh Harry nodded and turned, heading towards the door.
"Yeah, also, I hope we see you again Harry!" He whipped his head around just as he was about to leave only to see her walking away with a giggle.
'I'll never be free of my popularity...' He huffed once again.
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