Chapter 21
Harry, instead of shadow-walking back to London in a single step, decided to wander the country for a while. Which was how he found himself in front of a seemingly innocuous-looking hill.
“It looks like a fairy mound, but there’s something missing!” Harry shouted into the woods surrounding him, pacing back and forth. “Maybe it needs to be a passing point? Let’s see…”
Looking at his watch, Harry saw that it was roughly one hour until twilight.
“Okay, an hour. I can wait an hour. In the meantime, however, might as well try and make a spell to see through it.”
Stepping back from the mound, Harry forced raw magicka through his hands, sketching an hourglass held in a glass orb as he did. Keeping the flow going, he swirled his hands around the non-visible image, slowly bringing his hands closer, compressing the image.
Eventually, once the force was compressed, Harry lifted one hand from the other, formed a circle with his thumb and index, and looked through it.
“A… a laboratory?” Harry muttered confusedly, looking through the mound to see what seemed to be a study attached to an enchanting laboratory, with a variety of different stations scattered about it.
Dispelling the magicka he was flooding through his hand, Harry moved to look at his watch but stopped when he heard a loud chime emanating from the mound before he could. Turning to look at the mound, he saw that a section of it faded away, revealing a stone door.
Pushing it open, Harry entered the rooms, making his way to the study section first, spotting dust-laden parchment on the desk, and books untouched by time. Looking down at the desk, he saw that the sheets were enchanting schematics.
“Those are… those are Daedric glyphs.” Harry muttered as he looked at them closer. “Some Nedic, Akaviri and Falmeris.”
Looking over at the shelves, he spotted titles related to the Aurbis, Oblivion Gates and dimensional rifts. Shifting over to the lab section, he saw an Arcane Enchanter, a Spell Crafter’s Altar, drained soul gems and shards of metal.
“I think we know where the Morag Tong member went to after offloading his artifacts.” Harry idly commented.
“Return your attention to the schematics.”
Wandering over, Harry took a look at the entirety of the diagram, no longer focusing on the sigils and characters on the designs.
“Those… are those what I think they are?”
“Indeed.”
“I mean, they’re certainly rudimentary. It looks like he was trying to center it on himself, instead of your plan. An inherent misbalance.”
“A succinct summary of the issues in this initial design. Such problems are mere child’s play, however, and rather easy to adapt out.”
“And using them as a basis circumvents having to create the schematics from the base up.” Harry added, rolling up the designs, pocketing them as he took certain books from the shelves as well.
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The rest of the journey to London was rather less interesting than he would have liked, with the blueprints he had found being the only truly interesting discovery, though there were a few artifacts he had managed to find as well. But finally, he found himself in London once more. The information he had implanted by Azura had given him a general idea of the location, so Harry mostly spent his time wandering around, trying to find aberrations in the shadows surrounding him.
Eventually, he managed to find what seemed to be the entrance, noticing a phone booth with shadows that went deeper than they should. Stepping into them, he was expecting something like a ladder, maybe.
He was not expecting a freefall.
“FUCK!” was the first thought going through his mind.
The second was, whether or not the height would kill him if he was still a shadow. The final panicked thought was attempting to think of a way to not die.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Harry hurriedly thought. “Okay, okay, uh… Spikes!”
Still falling, Harry held his hand to his Arcanist Tome and manifested two runeforms in front of himself. Quickly shoving his hands forward, he planted the runeforms on his hands, manifesting ichor-slicked tentacles that he quickly stabbed into the wall next to him, one of them getting wrenched out of the wall from the inertia, leaving him dangling in the… elevator shaft? It looked like one at least, if you removed the belt mechanism
“Lorkhan preserve me.” He internally sighed. “What is wrong with the wizards in this world?”
“Well, that was rather interesting.”
“Yeah, for you maybe! Now, can I die from this height as a shadow?”
“I don’t believe that any shadow mage has ever been in such a position. Perhaps you would wish to test it?”
“Nope. I’ll be climbing down.”
With great care, Harry dispelled the tentacle in the hand that was limply hanging down. He thought it might have been dislocated, actually. With a not insignificant amount of pain, he shot an Ice Spike into the wall, and carefully made a runeform that coalesced into a lasso. With great effort, he managed to secure the loop around his waist, secured the end against the Ice Spike and began to rappel down.
Finally landing in the middle of the Ministry’s reception area in the Atrium. Raising his hand, Harry flooded warmth and magicka into his palm, holding it over his shoulder. With a sharp jerk and a jolt of pain, Harry felt his arm relocate itself. Injury dealt with, he twirled a Clairvoyance together, making his way to the elevators.
Looking at the trail leading him to his goal, Harry sighed.
“Here we go again…”