Previously, on the Caretaker...

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You look at the gash behind you…You are not crazy enough to jump into the end of reality…not yet, Potter might have to deal with that on his own there.

You look back at the incoming horde.

“They are too many, and even then, our spells deal no damage to them, all we can do-”

You see the creatures pouring out from the holes on the cliffside under the castle.

“-its buy some more time…Everyone! start digging!”

“What do you think I'm doing!?” Shouts Merula, a big hole already being dug in front of her.

Olivia and Willow look at each other, then at you, seemingly understanding your plan before starting blasting holes into the ground.

Water spells, blasting spells, charms, transfigurations. You use everything you know to dig a huge triangular shaped trench that surrounds the entire area and then turn its diagonal walls into very loose sand. Everyone had to follow your lead for several minutes, but eventually, you ended up with a moat filled with quicksand.
No matter who walks through there, there is no way anything can make it across, one way or another, they will end up stuck there.

Time to test that theory…

“Incoming!” You alert everybody.

The first of the creatures steps into the sand trap and immediately falls to its center. It stumbles all the way down until it ends up stuck in the sand.

The creature claws at the sand, kicking and flailing as much as it can, but all it creates is a layer of dust that falls down, trapping it back every time it makes a small progress.

“It vorks! It really vorks!” Willow says excited.

“Dont get cocky, girl. There are still many more!” Merula says after blasting another creature back once it started climbing the sand, making it fall into the center of the trap.
“They are not going to stop trying!”

“She is right! it's only a matter of time before they find a way out!” You blast another.

“So what's the plan then?” Asks Olivia while throwing spells at the ones that are trying to dig their way out.

“One second, I'm thinking…”

You look around but see no exit, you are surrounded by quicksand, and beyond that, certain death.

“Apparition?” Impossible, Hogwarts anti-apparating spells are still up.
“Summon a broom?” You can only take 1 person with you and leaving the others alone isn't an option.
“Follow Potter and jump into the gash?” …You have no idea what's in there, and The Beast is on its way, for all you know, it's probably right there.

You keep thinking and thinking, but cannot find an exit to your predicament.

…You are stuck.

“I-i dont…I dont know what to do…”

Willow looks at you, worried, she then begins passing around, walking from one side to the other.

Olivia is getting hit with the reality of your situation, she slowly stops casting spells to keep the creatures away, seemingly accepting her fate.

Merula on the other hand, is too focused casting spells, but notices the lack of cover fire.
“Hey! What's going on back there!?”
She turns to berate the rest of the group.
“I know I'm the best there is but I could really use a hand here!”

You look at her, she looks angry at you but is forced to turn back to the creatures and keep casting spells.

“No, if she can keep fighting despite the odds, then I can find a way to save all of us, I just need something crazy enough to work.”

You turn back and stare at the gash, there is some sort of purplish mist coming out of it, it looks mystical, it even shines when the sunrays go through it.

“I guess Potter had the right idea…Everyone! Into the gash! Now!”

“VHAT?!”

“Just do it! We´ll be fine!”

“I dont know if you have noticed but these things are making it across the quicksand!” Merula shouts back.

“Its ok! It´ll stop them long enough, now go!”

Merula throws one last blast and starts running towards the gash, with her running start, she jumps into the gash and disappears from view.

“Willow! You next!”

You take Merula´s spot and start defending, blasting the creatures that start climbing up.

“Vhat about you?!”

“I´ll go after you guys are safe! Don't worry! I´ll join you in a minute!”
You blast another creature that got way too close to where you are, they are starting to learn how to traverse the quicksand.

“Take Olivia with you!”

She hesitates for a minute, but she ends up taking Olivia´s hand and guiding her to the gash, they both jump at the same time and disappear from view.
Now, only you remain.

“Alright, now it's just you guys and me.”

You see the gash in between shots, it's slightly separated from the ground.

“Perfect…”

You start blasting spells at the ground under the gash, just like you did with the moat filled with quicksand, creating a sink hole.
Each time you blast the ground, you turn to blast a creature away, you repeat the process until the hole is becoming almost impossible to cross.

“Now or never”

You run at the gash, trying your best to run as fast as you can with your prosthetic leg, and then, you jump.
You aim at the ground and concentrate all your power to cast one final spell while in midair.

The spell hits the hole and you create another pit of quick sand right under the gash. You then cross the rift and disappear from the face of the earth.

…

You open your eyes to a stinging sensation on your face.

“Wake up!”

*SLAP*

“AAH! IM UP! IM UP!”

You sit up on the floor, everything looks and feels weird.
You touch the floor, it looks like some sort of marble, but it's soft to the touch, fresh but not cold, it extends infinitely in all directions.

Behind you, you can see the gash in reality, from there you can see outside, and you can see the creatures, all jumping into the pit trying to reach the hole in reality, but none can make it and fall into the deep shifty trench.

You feel relieved and your lungs let out a deep breath you didn't know you were still holding.

“Oh zhank god you are ok!” Willow gives you a tight hug and fills your face with kisses.

“Yes, I'm ok, how about you?”

“Im fine so far, but zhis place feels veird, i feel…good, strong and rested, even hydrated somehow”

“Nevermind that, where. THE FUCK. ARE WE?!” Merula almost screams at you.
“What is this place?”

You look around and take in your surroundings with more detail.
The white marble floor goes infinitely in every direction, the sky is pitch black, peppered with constellations and stars, you see planets and galaxies too.
That's the normal stuff.
You also see the sun and the moon are orbiting each other and moving across the “sky” at high speeds, yet, the lighting doesn't change, it looks like no matter where they are positioned, it's always illuminated, somehow.
There are dark purple clouds in the dark sky, but they feel far far away, they must be galaxy sized, it's dizzying just imagining how massive they could be.
It's mesmerizing, but it makes you feel pathetically small compared to everything.

“Brandon…”
Willow gets your attention once again.
“Vhere are ve?”

You finally stand up and look around, trying to find any hints of your exact location.

“I…dont know…”

“So you made us jump into who knows what and you don't even know where it took us?!”
Merula grabs you by the neck of your coat and shakes you.
“I could kill you right now!”

“Me-Merula! Calm down, please!” Olivia tries to stop her.

“Hey, I see somezhing! over zhere!”

Willow points to something far in the distance, it almost looks like…

“...A city?”

Then, in that city, something lights up, it looks like fireworks exploding in the sky along with black shapes crawling around the white marble buildings, from here they all look like ants…Angry ants.

“Hey, there is something over here too!” Olivia gets everyone's attention while pointing in the opposite direction.

It appears to be another city, colored white like the other one, but it feels old, from what little you can see, the buildings appear long abandoned, yet, still sterile, untouched for who knows how long.
In the middle of it, a huge building, probably half the size of the entire city itself, you can see a massive door in the middle of it, reaching almost all the way to the top of it…An ominous “cooing” comes out from it.

“So…where to now, genius?” Merula ask.

“How am I supposed to know? i dont know this place!”

“Fine, just pick one then, aren't you the leader of the group? How did you survive this long? Sheesh…”

“Mostly luck…and a big dick”

“What?”

“What?”

You look at both cities then turn to Willow.

She looks at you and nods.
“I´ll follow you everyvhere, vherever you zhink it's best”

>Go right, to the city with fireworks and ants
>Go left, to the old city
>Other (Write in:)

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And now, we continue.

File: IT BEGINS.png (369 KB, 706x402)

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Update coming soon.

Seeing Willow always willing to be by your side, no matter the dangers, fills your heart with determination, happiness and courage.

You take a look at the old city…You feel like going there isn't a feasible option right now, besides, something is happening somewhere else, better check that first before doing anything drastic.

You turn to the right instead and start walking towards the other city, Willow and Co. follow after you.

“So we are going towards the action? maybe you aren't so much of a coward after all, who wants to go to an abandoned city anyway?” Merula says rather smugly.

“It's not that” You say. “If something is happening there, then it must be something big, and I have a feeling that Potter is involved in it.”

“Right, he jumped in first, who knows vhat is he doing right now” Willow says, speeding up her pace until she reaches your side and walks besides you.

“He has been…unstable…since Lily died, I don't really trust him to be on his own for long periods of time”

“His kid died? Damn…that must have sucked…” Says Merula, with an unusually subdued tone.

The group stays in silence for a while after that. The mood died off after that quick but heavy subject. So you continue walking instead.

At first, it almost looked like the city wasn't getting any closer, the white marble floor goes on and on, with no signs of it ever ending or at least changing.

You start jogging for a minute, hoping to close down the gap a bit faster, however, you see no real change in the distance, so you slow down once again, the rest of the group just a couple of steps behind you.

“H-how long have we been walking for?” Olivia asks, panting a bit as the group stops for a moment to catch their breath.
“It feels like we have been walking for hours!”

“I dont zhink ve have been walking for more zhan 20 minutes…are you ok?”

“20 minutes? I was going to say we have been walking for like 5 minutes, 6 tops” You say, starting to feel confused.
“Merula, what do you say?”

You turn to look at Merula, she is in the back of the group, she is sweating, tired and at the verge of passing out

“D-dayssss…”

She falls but Olivia manages to catch her before she hits the ground.

“Merula! Are you ok?!” Willow asks as she gets closer to her.

She slurs her words trying to respond, but you can't make up anything of what she is saying.

“Please don't tell me this is another one of those Merlin trails…” You say almost instantly defeated.

“You zhink zhats could be it?”

“I sincerely hope it's not…Here, let me just…”

Willow and Olivia help her get on her feet for you to hit her with a “Rennervate” spell to give her back some energy.

She immediately wakes up with a loud gasp of air and opens her eyes wide as plates.

“WOHOHOHO!! Brandon! What did you hit me with?!”

“Just a simple Rennervate, are you ok?”

“Ok? I feel GREAT!” She proceeds to flex her arms in a few poses.
“I didn't know you were a healer! Why did you become a simple caretaker? you could have done mountains of Galleons with this!”

“But Im not…i dont have any special healer training or anything like that, i just know basic healing spells”
You look at your wand and feel its weight on your palm. It doesn't really look different, but for some reason, it “feels” different. You can't exactly figure out the reason.
You look at the girls, they all seem to be distracted with Merula's antics for the moment.
You decide to do a little experiment.

“Lumos”

You cast the basic illuminating spell, expecting your surroundings to be illuminated like always.
Instead, you feel like you just created a flashbang explosion.

“AAH MY EYES-NOX! NOX!”

You turn the light off and shake your wand a bit, feeling it warm up in your hands.
The girls are all surprised at the sudden explosion of light going off right next to them, somebody screams, but you can't see who, since your eyes are currently seeing spots everywhere.

“TEDMON! WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?!” Merula screams while covering her eyes.

“Brandon! Vhat vas zhat?!” Willow is rubbing her eyes while looking away from you.

“AAH IM BLIND!” Olivia walks around in circles, hands covering her face.

“I'm sorry! Im sorry! I didn't mean to! I just…”

You look at your wand again, an idea forming in your head.

“Ok, nobody move, i think i can fix this”

It takes a moment to line them all up and cast “Episkey” on them.
Not only are their eyes and yours completely healed, but you also feel that itching in your stump finally disappears.
Willow mentions that some soreness on her arms is gone, Merula says that her lower back feels relaxed and Olivia says she can breathe a bit better now.

“Did you shtudy healing spells or somezhing?”

“I didn't, I mean, I should have, but i didnt…quick, try a spell, just cast whatever!”

Willow thinks for a moment before casting “Aguamenti”. She intended to summon just a bit of water, but instead a powerful jet stream shoots out of her wand.

Merula, competitive as always, went for “Bombarda” creating, in her words, “The biggest explosion she has ever created”

Olivia refused to cast anything, afraid of what might happen if she does.

“It feels harder to control, but it's definitely more powerful…vhat´s causing zhis?”

“I have no idea…”
You look around, hoping to find the source of your unexpected power-up, but all you can see is the dark sky and…dark floor?

“Werent we further away from the city than this?” Olivia gets everyone´s attention while pointing to the city. It's closer now, so close you can see the empty roads behind the huge arc that serves as an entrance to the city.

“What the hell is this, Tedmon?”

You say nothing, instead you focus on the floor for a moment as you walk into the city.
The previously marble white floor that went for infinity, is now almost crystal clear, like standing on top of a perfectly still lake or a mirror, you can see the sky and the stars, perfectly reflected on it, only disturbed by the movement of some sort of…waves or ripples right under your feet, you can't feel them though, you only feel a perfectly smooth surface.

“...Zhis is freaky…”

“Stay close, we don't know what could be out here”

Just as if on queue, you see more of those “fireworks” lighting up the sky, they explode violently when they reach their peak or when they hit…something in the sky.

“Diffindo…Incendio…Expulso, those are attacks, somebody is fighting over there and judging by the amount of spells, it's either a master combatant…or a bunch of desperate people” Merula analyzes with ease after observing the skies for a moment.

“Vhat could zhey be fighting?”

“Maybe more of those awful black creatures” Olivia says, fearful at the idea of confronting those creatures again.

“Lets hope not, I don't want to see those things ever again.”

“No, I mean, it's definitely more of those things, look! The tower over there”

Olivia points at a tall and thin tower standing in the center of an empty lot, it looks like it was a plaza of some sort, the terrain was perfectly squared, covered in perfect white tiles, it separated itself from the streets by a fence made out of perfectly trimmed hedges.
From the slim tower, you see more of those creatures, pouring out of the windows and doors, crawling down the walls of the tower like ants, the smaller ones crawled in all 4´s, they had flat heads, no face and were inhumanly skinny, it was like watching a real life stickman you could find in a student's notebook.
The bigger ones looked like bats galloping on the ground, their heads also perfectly flat, but they had the outlines of human faces on them, yet no defining details, it was like looking at human faces pushing against bed sheets.
No matter if they were big or small, they all hooted or moaned as they charged towards something on the other side of town.

You and the rest of your group have to hide behind a building to cut the visual connection, you were all getting headaches just from looking at them for more than a minute.

“Vhat should ve do? ve cant fight those zhings, zhey are vay too many, ve have to be shneaky if ve vant to move around zhe city” Willow suggest.

“We can't be sneaky the entire time we are here, we have to stop those things from showing up at all, maybe they are being created, or summoned or transfigurated or something, if we stop that, then we could do whatever we want without having to worry about them” Says Merula while trying to take a quick peek from behind the building you are hiding.

“We can always go back to the other city…” Olivia says quietly.

You consider all options.

Only one could be considered the “safest” option, but it would only make the entire trip here a waste of time.

The other two are extremely dangerous, one way or another you will have to eventually deal with more of those things…

…Or maybe, if you plan well enough and if you are lucky enough, you could deal with them somehow…it would still be extremely dangerous though.

What will you do?:

>Sneak your way through the city and look for the battle that's happening somewhere.
>Head into the tower and take out whatever is creating those black creatures.
>Abandon this city and travel to the old one.
>Other (Write in:)

>>6415014
>Sneak your way through the city and look for the battle that's happening somewhere.

>>6415014
>Sneak your way through the city and look for the battle that's happening somewhere.

>>6415014
>Sneak your way through the city and look for the battle that's happening somewhere.

“I say ve shneak through zhe city” Willow raises her hand.

“Im with her, we cant even damage those things, i think it will be best not to confront them” Olivia raises her hand too.

“I say we fight, im great at sneaking, but it would be better to just get rid of them” Merula keeps her hands down, wand at the ready.
“Your call, Tedmond”

They all look at you, waiting for your vote.

You raise your hand.

“Im sorry, Merula, but we can't risk fighting those things, it's just way too dangerous. We are sneaking around.”

“Pff, fiiiine, lets just go then.” Merula puts her wand away.

You look at the spells exploding in the sky and notice the trails they leave behind.

“Whatever is happening, is coming from that direction, I think we can cut through some of the streets if we take this path”

The girls agree with you and you all start sneaking your way behind the buildings.

You go back a couple of streets away from the tower, once you find a desolated and dark street, you start walking through it, still looking everywhere for any hints of danger.
The street is dark, with white stone houses on each side of the gravel road, no signs of life anywhere.
There are a few posts with some lights trapped inside a glass box, it almost looks like fire, but you see no flames, just light with no apparent source.

“Vhat is zhis place?” Willow says, mostly asking herself just above a whisper.

“Looks like a simple town…definitely magical though” You reply.

“Doesnt look like any town I've been to” Olivia adds.

“It's definitely old, maybe even ancient” Says Merula.

You continue walking for a bit, not too long after, you take a left turn and encounter another road with houses but these look like they just went through war.
In it, you see crumbled buildings, the road split in several pieces, smoke is coming from inside of a house, it's reminding you a lot of how Hogsmeade looked before you reached Hogwarts.
But most importantly, several bodies, all lying on the ground, unmoving.

“Ow bloody hell!” Exclaims Merula.

“V-vhat happened here?!”

Olivia turns around and tries her hardest not to empty her stomach.

You were about to start counting the bodies, but decided not to. You don't want to know just how many bodies are in this street alone, but most importantly, you can't tell how many bodies are even complete.

There is a strong smell of iron in the air, it's almost nauseating.

“Zhey are…”

“They are students…all of them”

You could see robes with yellow, blue, green and red trims all over the place, there were maybe 3 or 5 adults, but everyone else was a Hogwarts student.

Most of the stone houses were stained with red from their blood or black from fire or explosions, the ground was cut and jagged, like hundreds of knives were used to cut through the stone.
A couple of buildings were turned into rubble, some had ice that was starting to melt, coming out of the doors and windows.
One lot was simply gone, no smoke, or evidence of something ever being in that place, just a huge crater that went deep into the ground.

You take a step into the road and hear a wet and sticky sound, the entire street is soaked in blood and cold water.

The girls follow closely behind you.

“Are you sure you want to go through here?” Olivia asks.

Merula shushes her.
“Shh Shut up, i dont want to alert whatever did all of this”

Olivia whimpers for an instant before keeping quiet.

You and your team tip-toe around as many puddles as you can, only stepping on them when they are too wide to walk around.
You swear something is reacting to the sounds of water and blood under your feet, it feels like you are being watched…

*Chk Chk Chk*
something not too far away from where you are makes some sort of clicking noise.
It whines and huffs before clicking again.

*HMMFF HMMFF CHK CHK CHK HOOOooot*

“Shit, i recognize that hooting…”

“Keep your eyes open, if you feel a headache, sound off”

You keep walking slowly across the road, looking for wherever that creature might be. You can feel your heart thumping in your ears, your face feels both warm and cold at the same time, the grip on your wand feels like it might falter at any second from how hard you are holding it.

*CHK CHK HOOT WHOOO*

Halfway across the street, you encounter a particularly damaged building on the right side of the street, it has crumbled entirely into the ground, but also, a huge boulder sits on top of the ruins.
Ice surrounds the boulder, keeping it from rolling away and freezing it to the ground.

The closer you get to it, the more your ears start to rumble and your head starts to feel fuzzy.

“You feel that too?”

“Ja, i feel it”
“Me too, Auh…”
“Ugh, let's hurry, I'm not a fan of headaches…”

Once you are walking in front of the rubble, your headache increases drastically.

And from the middle of the street, you see it, one of the big bat creatures that was crawling down the tower, stuck under the rubble, trying to move but trapped under the heavy weight of the boulder and ice.
Seeing it directly was a big headache, but you could keep your sight on it for long enough to notice the blood around its maws and claws, the ice around it was reddish too.
Half of its body was crushed under the collapsed building, its right arm was bending in an unnatural way…even more so than usual, obviously broken and encased inside a spike of ice. The other arm was simply gone.

But despite the damage, it still tried to trash around and free itself, but could not make any progress.

“How is it still alive?!” Merula ask angrily. “Who knows for how long that thing has been there, it should have died long ago!”

“Its not a regular creature, Merula…We don't even know how it came to be”.

“Well, maybe not…but we could figure out…”

Everyone turns to look at her.

“What are you suggesting?”

“Im suggesting we experiment on this one. It's trapped, so it wont be going anywhere and it wont attack us, we could try and see what makes it tick, maybe even figure out how to kill them!”

She points at the missing arm and the broken one.

“Look! You can see they CAN take damage! We just need to figure out WHAT caused that damage”

“She has a point, Ve could learn a lot from it” Willow says.

“I…i mean, yeah, but…”
You turn to look at the creature, you have to squint a bit to endure the headache.

“It's worth a try” Olivia says from the back.

You see the sky light up with more spells and a couple of explosions, followed by a small tremor and some rubble shaking just a bit.

You take a deep breath, only to regret it a second later after getting a deep whiff of that iron taste in the air again.

>”Forget it, we have to keep moving”
>”It could be worth a shot” (You have time for a couple of tests, write down how and what will you test on it, then roll a 1D100+40 (10 for each member of your team) Have to beat a DC: 90 to get good results))
>Other (Write in:)

>>6418349
>”It could be worth a shot”
Let's try our luck. No idea what would could try tho

>>6418349
>>”It could be worth a shot” (You have time for a couple of tests, write down how and what will you test on it, then roll a 1D100+40 (10 for each member of your team) Have to beat a DC: 90 to get good results))

>>6419729
I forgot to roll, I'm retarded

Rolled 41 (1d100)

>>6419729
>>6420048
This time I mistyped, my bad

Rolled 17 + 40 (1d100 + 40)

>>6418349
>”It could be worth a shot”

Rolled 33 + 40 (1d100 + 40)

>>6419752
Finally rolling

File: sJRLZK.gif (2.22 MB, 320x170)

2.22 MB GIF

>>6420050
>81
>>6420059
>57
>>6420060
>73

*Sigh* It could be worth a shot…” You say, not entirely convinced but you can't deny the weight of the opportunity.
“So how do we do this?”

“What do you mean?” Asks Merula.

“Hey you are the one who wanted to experiment on it, surely you have at least an idea of what to do with it…right?”

“Hey, you are the one from the “smart” house, that's your job”

“Merula, i swear-”

“Ah relax! im just messing with you”
She steps closer to the creature, shaking her head a bit to resist the headache.
“We just hit it with everything we got until we see whatever causes the most damage, you know, the Scientific Method”

Immediately, she starts throwing spells at it.
The creature flinches, trashes, hoots, hisses and roars with each different spell it gets hit by.
One by one, each member of your team suggests and casts different spells, when they see something does nothing, they move to another spell, and so on and so on.

Yet the creature remains intact, showing no more damage than what it already had.

“I…i dont…get it” Merula says in between pants.
“We have hit this thing with literally everything we got, but nothing works. How did they manage to break one arm and rip the other one?”

“Ve tried “Diffindo” already, right?” Willow asks, she is sitting on top of some rubble behind you.

“Yeah, all of us, different angles, power and even together…nothing” You say, resting your hands on your knees.

“We also tried elemental spells, we can't burn it, ice only traps it, it can't drown and air barely bothers it” Olivia says.

“Anyone got any more ideas?” Merula asks, annoyed that she hasn't gotten any results.

“Just a couple, but I don't know if it'll work” You say after having recovered your breath.

“Go for it, im done with this thing” Says Merula as she walks back to sit next to Willow on the rubble.

You start levitating a big rock with your wand.

“A rock? Please Tedmon, what's a simple rock going to do against it? A bunch of explosions didn't do jack!”

“Have you noticed that all this time it's been trapped under a rock?”

Your team looks at the rock and rubble on top of the creature, held in place by the ice.

“...You don't really think that rocks are their weakness, right?”

“No of course not, thats ridiculous”

“Good, because I was this close to slapping you if you were” Merula says while holding the tips of her thumb and index fingers together.

“Do it and you'll have to deal vith me!”

“Girls, please!...its not rocks that are their weakness”

You proceed to slam the rock at its arm that's encased in ice.
The creature wails in pain and wriggles trying to free itself, but you keep smashing until you hear the sickening sound of something breaking loudly.

*CRACK*

The black creature thrashes harder than before, it tries to take a bite out of you, but you step away before it gets too close.

“No fucking way!” Merula says shocked. “There is no way that's all it takes!”

You then leave the rock to the side and aim your wand at the creature.

“Brachio Emendum” You cast the bone healing spell on the arm you just broke.

“Hey! What are you doing!? don't heal it!” To your surprise, Olivia screams almost indignant.

Everyone stands up and levitates rocks with their wands, ready to stop the creature from regaining its strength back.

“Stop” You command.
“It doesn't work on it”

“What?” They ask.

“It didnt heal at all…i think i know how these creatures work now”

You stand back up and head back to your group.

“We can't hurt them with magic because they are made of magic, they are not living beings but they still have a physical body!” You start explaining.
“Magic has no effect on them because they ARE magic, They are like magnets! attack them with the same thing and nothing happens, but attack them with something completely different and their physical bodies are suddenly affected!”

“Zhat…i guess zhat makes sense?” You says confused, not entirely sure if she understands.

“I refuse to believe it's that simple” Merula doubts.

“Oh I'm sure it is more nuanced than that, surely there are many things we don't know yet, but it's true, that's why it was not healed when I tried to fix its arm!”

“Or maybe it's because it has no bones? Can you see any bones on the missing arm?” Merula retorts.
“Does it even HAVE bones?”

“I didnt…see one…”

“And you want to trust this “discovery” of yours?”

“Do you have any other ideas?” You ask back.

Merula stands there, quiet, looking for something to fight back with.

Willow looks at you and nods, you see doubt in her eyes, but she still walks to your side.

“If he believes it vorks, zhen i believe him”

She holds your hand and gives it a squeeze.

“You can't be serious, there's barely any proof! we will-”

Olivia walks right past her and stands next to you.
“It seems to work so far, at least we have something”

Merula sighs and rubs her forehead.
“Oh we are so dead…fine, we'll go with your dumb theory, lets just kill this thing and be done with this”

Everyone holds a boulder, ready to smash the creature but stop before you can make your swing.
“Hang on…do you hear that?”

“Hear what? there is nothing.”

“Exactly”

You turn to look at the sky, but see that it's completely still, no spells, no fireworks, no flying attacks that missed their target.
The distant sounds of the battle that was happening far in the distance are no longer there.

“I dont like the sound of that…Quick, lets kill this and-” Merula doesn't complete her sentence when she turns to look at the creature right in front of you.

Still under all the rubble and ice, the creature lifts its head as much as it can and begins singing a long sustained hoot.
Then, more hooting sounds far in the distance, all of them sounding in unison.

“Kill it…KILL IT!” You shout.

You all swing your rocks at the creature, but the ground trembles and rumbles like you have never felt before.
Everyone has to kneel in order to avoid losing their balance and falling, you even feel yourself bouncing and lifting off of the ground several times.

“Vhats is happening?!” Willow says while crawling on the floor.

“Get away from the rocks!” You shout.

You barely finished your sentence when the ice that held the big rock in place cracks, shards of ice fly away as the giant boulder gets unstuck and rolls away from its resting place, following the gravel path until it finally stops after crashing into a house.

The hooting ends as soon as the earthquake does.

“Did the world break or something?! What was that?!” Merula is the first to talk.

“AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” Olivia screams and points behind you.

You turn and are face to face with the creature, finally free from its rudimentary prison.
Half of its lower body is crushed, it's missing an arm and the other one is barely attached to its shoulder after you beat it with the heavy rock, nevertheless, the creature still takes a swipe at you, followed by it trying to bite your head off.

>Roll a 4D100+20(5 for each member of your team) against an opposing 1D100 roll from the creature. This is the first out of 3 rolls, each member of your team needs to beat at least 2 out of 3 in order for your team to survive.
>Results will go in order: Brandon>Willow>Merula>Olivia.

Rolled 64, 85, 5, 75 = 229 (4d100)

>>6421922
DEATH

Rolled 50, 96, 7, 34 = 187 (4d100)

>>6421922

Rolled 81, 18, 31, 63 = 193 (4d100)

>>6421922
Let's hope I can save Merula.

>>6421922

Let's hope everybody lives

Rolled 65, 44, 68, 33 + 20 = 230 (4d100 + 20)

>>6423013
(mistyped the dice)

Rolled 91 (1d100)

>>6421927
>>6422061
>>6423011
>>6423014
>Brandon: 81 + 20 = 101
>Willow: 96 + 20 = 116
>Merula: 68 + 20 = 88
>Olivia: 75 + 20 = 95

Merula might be in danger but its still possible, now lets see what the creature has in store for all of them in this 1st round.

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>>6423019
Uff, looks like Merula took a beating from the black creature this time, but this is only the first round! we still got at least one more to go!
Update soon...

You rolled away just before its fangs could close on your face, you might even have lost a couple of inches of hair, but you are still in one piece.

The first rock that hit its head came from Merula, it was a solid hit, enough to daze the creature just enough to give you a chance to get away from immediate danger.
However, it seems that the creature took that as a personal challenge, so it zeroed in on her, to the point that it ignored every other stone, rock and boulder that went its way.

“Ah crap…” Merula starts running away, throwing whatever rock she can find as she heads into the streets.
The black creature limps and drags itself to chase her, it moves unexpectedly fast.
Not only that, but it quickly gains ground and attempts to chomp on her, but Willow and Olivia save her by creating a rocky wall in front of it.

They lift stone walls around the creature, boxing it in for just a moment before the creature thrashes around and knocks the walls down, only to resume its chase.

Just as you are about to start throwing boulders at it, you notice a chunk of ice, slowly melting in front of you.

“That should work”

Instead of attacking with rocks, you instead opt to use the ice spell.

“Glacius!”

It takes a couple of tries but eventually you hit the creature and it freezes in place for just a second before the ice surrounding it starts cracking.

“Walls! Now!” You order.

Willow and Olivia raise the walls again, encasing the giant block of ice in a second layer of stone.
While they hold the walls up, you run towards the boulder that rolled away and into a house and begin dragging it back to where the creature was.
You are very thankful that your magic feels more powerful in this weird place, otherwise you would struggle to even attempt to move such a large object.

“Hurry up! This thing is really trying to get out!” Olivia complains as she struggles to maintain the wall.

Soon enough, you get there with the boulder, ready to let it drop and kill the creature once and for all.

But…

Seeing the creature trapped and about to be crushed, Merula gets closer to it and starts mocking it.

“Stupid thing, you really thought you were going to be able to even touch me? Hah! I am Merula Snyde! The most powerful-”

“Merula! get away from there! I'm about to drop this thing!” You scold her.

“Dont interrupt me when im in the middle of my-”

The walls explode and the creature bursts out of the ice.
Merula doesn't even have a chance to curse at it before it grabs her in its clawed and boney hand.

“Merula! God dammit!”

“No-wait-” Merula was about to ask for help, but you hear something *CRACK* loudly.
Merula lets out a loud, guttural noise, it quickly dies in her throat as a large amount of blood rushes out of her mouth, nostrils and the corners of her eyes.

You can see her trying her hardest to scream in pain, but the crushing grip of the creature won't let her do anything but to remain completely at its mercy.

She then goes limp, her head hanging low as the creature takes her closer to its mouth.

>Roll a 4D100+15(5 for each member of your team, except Merula) against an opposing 1D100 roll from the creature. This is the 2nd out of 3 rolls, each member of your team needs to beat at least 2 out of 3 in order for your team to survive.
>Results will go in order: Brandon>Willow>Merula>Olivia.

Rolled 91, 88, 64, 1 + 15 = 259 (4d100 + 15)

>>6424042
Oh boy.

Rolled 18, 72, 31, 61 = 182 (4d100)

>>6424042

Rolled 87, 20, 39, 84 + 15 = 245 (4d100 + 15)

>>6424042

Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>6424068
>>6424109
>>6424128
>Brandon: 91 + 15 = 106 (1/3)
>Willow: 88 + 15 = 103 (1/3)
>Merula: 64 + 15 = 79 (0/3)
>Olivia: 84 + 15 = 99 (1/3)

Merula is in mortal danger, but we have come out of worst situations before, it might still be possible...fingers crossed.

Rolling for the creature...

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>>6424214
Oh man...destiny was not kind to her...
Update soon

An explosion goes off on the creature's head, it does no damage to it but it gets its attention.
It looks at Willow.

“PUT HER DOWN!” She screams in anger.

The creature, instead, tries to get the rest of its body out of the ice and rock prison, it pushes against the ground trying to free itself, not bothering that Merula is still being held in its hand.
You hear another crushing sound coming from her body as the creature pushes and thrashes while trying to escape.

Before it can cause any more damage, you drop the giant boulder on the creature, crushing its body along with the entire makeshift cage.
The creature screams and flails in pain, throwing Merula away into the street, her body rolls and tumbles until it suddenly stops when it crashes into a wall.

Olivia runs around the outside of the battle to avoid the creature and heads towards Merula.

Meanwhile, you and Willow lift the boulder and smash it against the creature several times, making sure to hit the head, the arms, whatever is left of its lower body. The ground trembles with each smash until there is nothing left of the creature, only rubble and a shimmering puddle of bright purple.

>You killed the creature.
>You can now confirm that regular magical spells cause no damage to these creatures but enough physical trauma is enough to fully incapacitate them.

After making 100% sure that the creature is dead, you and Willow go down to where Olivia is currently treating Merula.

“It's not looking good” she says, casting whatever healing spell she knows.
Willow joins in too, casting spell after spell, trying to fix Merula's broken body.

You were about to join in, but stopped yourself after taking a good look at her.

Her waist and pelvis are a fraction of what its supposed to be, her dark green shirt is quickly becoming dark red, part of her ribcage is sunken, one of her arms is purple and only staying in place thanks to some loose skin, finally, her entire face is swollen and red, both from the blood pooling inside her skull and the one leaking from every orifice.

You know everyone´s magic is augmented in this strange place, but even you can tell there is no fixing this, not with the medical knowledge you currently have.
Merula notices your expression, she can tell the same just from that.

With her “good hand” she grabs her wand and holds it up at you. Her arm is trembling, barely able to stay up.

She coughs out a bunch of blood, splattering some of it on everyone, but no one seems to care at the moment.

Willow holds Merula´s hand.

“Give´em *cough* hell for me *cough*”

She lets go of her wand, leaving it on Willow´s hand and then her arm goes limp.

>Merula is dead.
>You have her wand

Before, you could hear some background noise, the rustling of some leaves, the flickering of the flames in some buildings, even the stomps of the creatures far in the distance, but now, there is nothing, you think you heard some buzzing in your ears, but that went away before you could even notice it.
Olivia starts sobbing and heaving heavily, the reality of the situation hitting her at full force, she starts panicking but she stays in place thanks to Willow who is currently hugging her.

Willow looks at you with actual fear in her eyes now.

Neither of you said anything for a minute but had to stop after hearing the sounds of battle resuming, this time not too far away.

“Olivia, ve have to move, zhey might be getting closer”
She helps her stand up and compose herself after a few moments.

“Vhat now?” She asks.

You look at the pit where chunks and bits of the creature were slowly sinking into the purple puddle until disappearing.

“We are fighting those things regardless of what we do, i think it's better if we surprise them instead of them surprising us”

“Ja, i agree, but vhat about-” She looks at Merula and you follow her gaze.
“Do ve leave her here? i dont know if I could live vith myself if ve do…”

There is a sound of a building crumbling not too far away, followed by a very distinct human scream.
The sound gets your attention for a moment, stealing your gaze away from Merula´s body, but by the time you look back at her, there is now a shimmering cloud of dust coming out of her body. It floats gently on top of her.

You back away a couple of steps, raising your hand to protect Willow, just in case anything weird happens.

“What is that?” You ask mostly to yourself.

The small cloud sways gently and begins moving away from the body.
You step away a bit more, careful not to touch it, Willow stands behind you.

The cloud floats in a straight line until it reaches the shimmer purple puddle that was previously the creature, and then lowers itself until it becomes one with the puddle and disappears from view.

Small green swirls ripple across the puddle before staying still, like nothing ever happened.

“W-what was that?” Asks Olivia, voice still trembling from her previous outburst.

“I don't know, but…did you feel that?”

There was a shimmering in the air all around you, a strange tingling sensation that felt oddly familiar.
It takes you a moment, but you recognize the feeling, it's the same thing you feel when a lot of people use a lot of magic constantly, remnants of it still linger in the air, giving a warm and fuzzy feeling.

You used to feel that all the time at Hogwarts, but grew almost numb to it due to all the constant exposure.

“Ja, I felt it” Willow says.

“Me too” Olivia continued.

“You think maybe we should-”

*BOOM*
There is a great explosion, way closer than what you are comfortable with.
You see smoke rising into the air a few streets away, not too far away from the first plaza you saw before you came to this street, makes you wonder how they got so close so fast.

“Brandon, ve have to go! now!”
You look at the smoke, then Willow, then back at the shimmering puddle, then at Merula´s body.

What will you do?
>Investigate the puddle: you can't just ignore whatever just happened there.
>Run away: the swarm of creatures is coming and you can't risk being caught off-guard.
>Other (Write in:)

What will you do with Merula´s body?
>Leave her.
>Take her with you.
>Other (Write in:)

>>6426466
>Investigate the puddle: you can't just ignore whatever just happened there.
>Leave her.

>>6426466
>Investigate the puddle: you can't just ignore whatever just happened there.

Can't ignore mystery puddles.

>Take her with you.

The sensible thing to do.

>>6426466
>>Take her with you.
Always pick up everything.

apologies for the delay, i´ve had to deal with some stuff here, please give me another couple of days while i sort everything out and we´ll come back to business in full force so we can end this story once and for all!

well, that took a bit longer than expected, but pretty much all of my stuff has been taken care off, now i can finally finish the next update!
Once again, apologies for the delay, but the next part will come out tomorrow! stay tunned

You know you might regret it later, but you just can't ignore what just happened here.

You quickly make your way to the puddle and stand next to it, you slowly lean in forward to look into the puddle. In it, you can see your own face reflected, along with the infinite dark sky and stars above you, it all has a purple tint but other than that, it looks normal.

You kinda want to dip your fingers in the strange liquid, but you hesitate and decide against it, a bit too big of a risk right now, instead, you decide to simply get closer to the surface of the puddle, kneeling down and getting as close as you can get to it.

There is an unusual distortion in the reflection, it's not caused by ripples in the surface or the slight movement of the liquid, instead, it appears to be inside of it.

You pull your head away from the surface of the puddle and notice Willow and Olivia are now reflected on the surface, they are standing next to you, looking a bit annoyed at you that you are wasting time looking at a weird puddle but you notice that they keep stealing glances at their reflections, obviously also interested on it.

“Are you done admiring your reflection?” Willow sasses you.

You sigh annoyed but understanding their frustration.

“I know, I know, I just…” You look back at the reflection “I get the feeling that could have been something that would give us some answers, or hints, or anything, but…”

You wave your hand over the puddle, hoping to catch a hint of something, anything that could give you any sort of information, but all you see is a purple-ish reflection staring back at you. Just You, Willow, Olivia and Merula.

“...Nevermind, lets get out of here before those things get to us”

You turn around and just as you are about to take your first step, you freeze.

You look back at Willow and Olivia, standing next to the puddle.
Just…Willow and Olivia.
They appear to be fixated on something in the puddle.

“1…2…3…Wait…”

You take a step back and peek into the puddle once again.

In there, you can see everyone's reflections, Yours, Willow´s, Olivia´s, and yes, Merula is there too.

Merula´s reflection waves at you.
“You did not think you would get rid of me that easily, did you?”

“How?!” You ask incredulously.

“I still have important things to do, you think I'm just going to let something as simple as death stop me? think again!”

She then pulls herself out of the puddle as if she were stepping out of a pool.
Outside of the puddle, she loses all color and becomes a blue-ish silver, you can see through her as she floats around your group for a moment, getting used to her new weightless movement.

“So she is a ghost now…can she still help us?” Olivia is the first one to talk.

“I doubt it” Merula responds. “Its very well documented that ghosts can't really do much of anything, we don't have magic nor can interact with the physical world…Maybe I could do some spy work? But I have no idea if that's really helpful right now…”

“Ve can find a use for her later, but ve have to move, now!” Willow pressures everyone when you can see a building crumbling nearby.

“Crap, she is right, let's move!”

You start running, trying to take a shortcut across some of the streets and crumbled buildings, but Merula stops all of you with a shout.

“HEY! DON'T LEAVE ME BEHIND!”

You turn and see her struggling trying to cross the street, almost as if she were being stopped by an invisible wall.

“What are you doing? Just follow us” You say.

“I. Cant. Do it!” Merula struggles.

“What? why?!”

“I think it's my body, I can't get too far away from it!”

“Oh for the love of- Willow, Olivia, keep going, i'll meet you near the plaza”

“Please don't take too long. Ok?” Willow hands you Merula's wand and gives you a quick kiss before disappearing into the buildings.

You make your way back to where Merula´s body is.
You can already see some of those creatures lurking at the end of the street, a small headache forming in your head as you see them.

You sneak your way next to her body and try lifting it, you can't avoid commenting that she feels surprisingly heavy.

“What the hell do you mean “Heavy”? Are you calling me fat!?”

“No! I just meant-Ugh! Nevermind that! I can't drag your body around like this, it´ll get me killed before we make it halfway back!”

“Well then fucking transfigure my body! It's no longer a living human being, by all magical intents and purposes it's an object now, you should be able to change it! Unless you are simply that pathetic…”

“I can still leave you here, you know…”

“No you wouldn't, now shut up and let's go already!”

You sigh in frustration and aim your wand at her body, transforming it into a plushie puffskein doll, it's light enough and small enough to fit in one of your coat's pockets.

“Not again…How did you know?!” Merula stares daggers at you.

“What? What do you mean? I just chose something that would be easy to transport”

“...N-nevermind, let's move!”

“You are weird…”

With her body now in your pockets, she is now capable of following you around without problem, so you both make your way back through the ruined streets and back to where you and Willow got separated.

“She must have cut through here, we should be able to catch up to them if we take the same path, quick over here!”

You weave in between the few still standing buildings, making up for a lot of the time you lost with your previous backtracking.
But as you exit one of the streets and enter a bigger and open area, you find more of those black creatures roaming around, some appear to be resting, others appear to be standing idle and a few seem to be standing guard, scanning the area and occasionally hooting.

You run back and hide behind a building before any of the creatures could see you.
“Great, that's not going to be easy to move around…Any ideas?” You ask Merula.

“I dont know, i guess i could…” She looks around for a moment before floating over some of the houses and coming back after a few moments.
“I think there is some sort of church not too far away from here, just take the path to your right, you could use the bell tower to see a better path”

“That…yeah, that works, nice job, Merula”

“Yeah, I'm great, I know.”

You roll your eyes and start going down the path that Merula mentioned.

“So what exactly is the plan here?” Merula asks after a few minutes of silence while making your way to the church.

“What do you mean? We go and stop whatever needs to be stopped, after that, we go back home and put everything back together”

“No yeah, I get that, but like…do you have an actual plan? What if something goes wrong?”

“Shh, wait…”
You stop and hide from a creature for a few moments inside an alley and continue your path after it moves, you can see the church a few streets away.
“Nothing will go wrong, we can't afford for anything to go wrong, so it won't."

Merula floats in front of you to stop you, you instead go through her, getting a cold feeling all over your body that makes you shiver for a few seconds.

“Ok, it was funny the first time, it's not funny now, what's the plan?”

You just look at her, your face showing a bit of confusion and remorse.

“...no…nooo no no no, you did not”

“I mean, we already know what we have to do…kinda, we just need to go and do it”
You reach the entrance of the church, open it with a simple Alohomora and close the door behind you.

“You mean to tell me, you have made it all the way here, to who knows where in the…i dont even know WHAT to call this place, without a proper team? no intel? no plans?! Just…winging it!?” She screams while floating next to you.

“Of course not! I've had Willow by my side all this time!”

“She does NOT count as a proper team!”

“We got the basic gist of what do to and why its happening”

“That is NOT INTEL!”

“And we kinda know what to do”

“THAT. IS NOT. A PLAN! HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!”

“Weird things happen and I got a big dick, that's how!”

Merula gets her face right in front of yours, you can feel the tip of your nose getting colder and colder the closer she gets.

“What exactly is your mission? Explain it to me. In. Detail…”

“Fine, I guess at this point it won't change anything if i tell you some details.”

You begin telling her your story, explaining the most important bits of what has happened to you while you look for the room that takes you up to the bell tower.

You explain how you got hired by Potter, how you thought it was weird that he didn't have a back-up for Filch.
Your first time fighting “Salazar”
The time you found Potter and his old friends in the lake
Getting Merlin stuck in your head
Slowly piecing together that the end of everything is coming
Realizing that you somehow got involved in some weird timeline shenanigans
Finding and going through the Merlin trails
KILLING Salazar
Meeting King Arthur for just a moment
How all of this is happening because of some prophecy that you think you haven't even heard properly and maybe some paintings.

With each detail you recount, her expression becomes more worried and worried, despite being a ghost you think her soul died more bit by bit with each new thing you reveal.
You didn't think it could be possible but she became even paler than what she already was.

“Hey, you ok?”

Somehow, Merula falls to the ground, she appears to be in shock, defeated even.

“The fate of everyone and everything…rests on you?...We are so dead. We are so BEYOND dead…”

“Hey, it ain't that bad! We made it all the way here, didn't we? Sure, now that I've told you all of this outloud, it does sound a bit…crazy…but hey! we are almost there!”

You then find the room that takes you to the top of the bell tower and climb the raggedy spiral stairs.
You end up on a small outside balcony, 4 pillars holding a small roof over your head with a heavy looking bell hanging from some old beams of thick wood.
From there, you can see most of the strange town/city you are currently in. It doesn't take long for you to find Willow and Olivia, they appear to be resting in a small park close to your destination, the main plaza.
You summon some red sparks and shoot at them, creating some small fireworks that they easily notice, they wave at you and you wave back at them.

“Good, we know where they are, now to regroup”

“I really hope that signal didn't give away our position”

“The creatures aren't that smart, we are fine”

You make your way back down the tower and exit the church, making sure you move as quietly as possible.

“So that's it? regroup, find the problem, deal with it, the end?” Merula asks, skeptical.

“As far as we know, yeah, that should be it. I´ll admit that there are many things that none of us knows and we are missing a lot of details…but I think as long as we do whatever keeps all of us alive, that should be the correct choice, right?”

“I-i guess? Oh my god…”

“Calm down, I'm sure everything will be alright, I bet we might even find a way to bring you back to life or something like that, who knows?”

“Please, let's just go…”

“Fine, we should be close anyways, keep an eye open for-shh! hide!”

You hide behind some bushes while a couple of creatures roam closer, they stop close to you while they look around and go away once they find nothing.

“Psst! Brandon!”

You recognize that voice.

“Willow? Willow, where are you?” You whisper

“Over here!”

You turn and see a small light coming from the top of a big leafy tree, then, Willow pokes her head out and beacons at you.

Once you make sure the coast is clear, you make a dash towards the tree and climb it up. You find Willow and Olivia in there, both perfectly safe and sound.
You both hug and share a deep but quick kiss.

“Thank Merlin you are ok, did you have any trouble while we were separated?”

“None so far, zhankfully. But I did hear combat sounds again and zhey are getting louder too, I couldn't see who vas fighting though.”

“Thats ok, we are about to figure it out”
You take a peek outside the tree and notice a taller building pretty close to you, it's not as big as the bell tower, but high enough to see the plaza clearly. You also see the road that takes you to the building being guarded by several creatures, it's gonna be hard getting past that undetected.

“All we need to do is climb that building and we should see what's happening out there clearly”

“Sounds easy enough I suppose” Olivia says meekly.

“Ok, that at least sounds like the beginning of a plan, let's do it” Merula continues.

“I´ll go first and make sure the roads are clear, after zhat i´ll give you a signal so you can all can cross and enter zhe building”

“Hang on a second” Merula interrupts. “I´ll go first, I'm a ghost, its safer for me to do it and i can probably do it faster than you, i can float after all”

“But you can't touch anyzhing and can't use any magic either, vhat if you need to touch somezhing to clear a path for us? Any obstacle ve come across could be our end if ve arent fast enough”

“Perhaps I could do it? i am pretty quiet” Olivia suggested, almost whispering.

*HOOOOOOT HUUT HUUUUUT!*

Suddenly, one of the creatures starts hooting and several respond with fast hoots, soon after, most of the creatures that were idle or standing still start roaming around the area.

“Shh! Be quiet…i think they heard us”

You peek outside again and see at least 6 of those creatures right next to your hiding spot.

You quickly but gently go back inside.

“...Ok, here is the plan:”

>Send Olivia first, she is the quietest but weakest
>Send Willow, she is the fastest but louder
>Send Merula, she is the safest but cant do much
>Send yourself
>Go all at once
>Other: (Write in:)

>>6435063
>Send Merula, she is the safest but cant do much
Die twice

File: merupuff.png (236 KB, 640x603)

236 KB PNG

Alright, we are back in business!
Im gonna try my damn hardest to update as fast as possible so we can move this story along and finish it before the thread dies!
Also, if anyone is wondering how the plushie toy >>6435058 looks like, here is a pic.

>>6435063
>Send Olivia first, she is the quietest but weakest
Should bet on stealth for now.

>>6435069
So is the bad ending everyone gets turned into marketable plushies?

>>6435911
im trying to leave the ending open to all opportunities, it all depends on what you guys do and vote in the end, speaking of, dont forget to vote!

>Send Merula, she is the safest but cant do much

if she dies again, give me two nickels

“Merula, i think it's best for everyone if you go first” You begin explaining your plan.
“Get to the entrance of that building and check if it's clear, look around the area to see if there is anything that could block our path, once you return, you'll guide us to help us get there as fast as possible, does that sound ok?”

“Using your team's abilities for the benefit of the group? now you are talking like a leader, perhaps there is still hope for all of us” She mocks you for a moment, but agrees with the plan.

You all wait for the creatures to give you the perfect opportunity for Merula to exit the tree, once they seem to wander off just enough, Merula comes out and starts floating across the roofs of the buildings.
She stumbles a bit, still getting used to her abilities as a ghost, but she makes it to the entrance of the tall building without any problems.
Once there, she walks through the wall and into the building, it takes her a few moments to come out and give you a thumbs up that you can barely perceive.

“Good, looks like we have an almost straight shot, are you ready?”

“Im ready” Willow says, stretching a bit while sitting on a branch

“Me too” Says Olivia quietly.

“As soon as Merula makes her way back, we'll drop and run to the closest safe spot”
You peek out once again and see Merula making her way back.

But halfway through, one of the creatures takes a running jump from one of the buildings and swats Merula out of the sky and into the roof of a building a few streets away.

Merula screams in pain, both when she is hit and when she lands on the roof.

“What? How?!” You ask loudly and some of the creatures turn in your direction but you hide before they can see you.
“They can hit ghosts, of freaking-course…”

“Quick, zhey are distracted, it's our chance!” Willow is peeking out of the tree and soon after jumps down the branch she was hanging on.

“No, Willow! Wait! Ah dammit!”
You drop and follow her, Olivia drops shortly after you.

Most of the creatures follow the sound of Merula’s screams of pain, they empty the streets, leaving you a straight shot to the building.

Willow is the first one to arrive there, she hid behind some edges the moment she could, not wanting to get any unnecessary attention.
You followed through shortly after, with Olivia lagging behind, she had to do a quick stop and hide for a moment to let some creatures pass before she could reach you.

Once you are all together, you move to open the door but find yourself slamming into it.
“Agh! Its locked!”

“Vell open it! Dont make us stand out here!”

Olivia then stands in between you and Willow and casts “Alohomora” Opening the door and jumping inside.

Willow gets inside and you follow last, you turn to close the door but as you do, you can see several of the creatures making their way back to you.

They have noticed you.

“SHIT! FIND THE STAIRS NOW! COLLOPORTUS!”

You cast the blocking spell, sealing the doors together but you suspect it may not help much.

The room is small, you aren't entirely sure what this building was supposed to be, there is a heavy looking stone table, appears to be carved from the floor itself,there are a few wooden stools scattered around, all broken or rotted and finally, everything is covered in a thick layer of dust,this place is too old for you to figure out what it could be back in the day, not that it matters right now.

One of the side windows explodes and a spiky limb is trying to make its way inside, it claws and scratches around, but the creature is too big to fit through it.

The walls tremble, you can see through the other windows that the building is quickly being surrounded by the black creatures, soon, all outside visibility is gone, you are surrounded.

“Found them!” Olivia shouts.
You see her opening a very thin wooden door, it was maybe ¾ the size of a regular door, behind it were some equally thin stairs.

Olivia goes first, followed by Willow and you at the end.
You can hear the main door bursting open when you reach the 2nd floor.
Then it all goes quiet for a bit, the walls stop shaking and the floor is no longer trembling.

You make your way to the last floor and stand on what appears to be an old outside garden, it has no plants but you can see pots and gardening equipment scattered around.
From there, you can clearly see the rest of the town, most of it is still standing, but you can see several places have been more affected than others, all of those, closer to the main plaza.

“What is happening there?”

In the middle of the plaza, you see a bright spot, it's too shiny to make out what it is.

Around the bright thing, is a bunch of people, you can't tell who they are, but they appear to be defending the light. They are currently being attacked by a horde of black creatures, somehow they appear to actually be taking them down, some of the creatures explode, others are being pierced by spells, a few straight up disappear from existence.

“More people made it here?”

“Who are zhey?”

“I-i can't tell but…” Olivia squints her eyes and gets closer to the edge of the roof.
“I think some of them are wearing Hogwarts robes…are they students?!”

You get closer to the edge too, wanting to take a closer look.

“There is no way they-GAHH!” The floor shakes under your feet again.

You all look down and see several of the creatures climbing the side of the wall.

“Sssshit shit shit SHIT! Get back!”

Everyone runs back inside the building, hoping that the walls will hold until the creatures lose interest.

“What now? we are trapped in here unless we do something quick!” Olivia says while hiding next to a knocked over table.

“Shh im thinking, im thinking”

“Well think faster! I didn't become bait just to help you think!” Says a familiar voice.

Merula floats through the wall and lays in the middle of the room, tired.

“Merula! You are alive…ish?”

“Yeah, i dont know how either, im wont lie, that caught me by surprise, looks like they can interact with any form of magic”

“But you don't have magic” Points out Willow.

“No. I can't USE magic, but apparently i am MADE out of it”

Everyone stays quiet for a moment before all saying at the same time…

“What?”

“Yeah, it appears to be some sort of old old magic I'm not familiar with…”

“Explain”

Merula sits down more comfortably and begins.

“When i…died” She shivers for a moment.
“i felt all my strength leave my body, the weaker and weaker i became, the more i could feel my magic being replaced by something I've never felt before, it was like being drained of everything and then refilled with something new…powerful, but something i have no idea how to use”

“Must have been that weird cloud thing that came out of your body and went into the weird puddle”

“Maybe…whatever it was, it…taught me things”

“Taught you?” You ask.

“Not like a teacher at Hogwarts would explain in a class, no. It was more…instinctual? I guess that's the word for it. Whatever, the point is, I can't do anything with this, but I can see it all around me, everything in this place is made out of the same thing. Me, the floor, the sky, those creatures…But also, you”

Willow and Olivia look at you, Olivia scoots away a bit.

“Come again?” you say.

“When I look at them…” Merula says after giving Willow and Olivia a look.
“I can see their magic, moving around in their bodies but they look different. You, on the other hand, have the same thing that this place is made off, your girlfriend has a little bit of it, but it's not much.”

Willow pats herself, looking a bit worried for a moment.

“Have you done anything that could have caused that?” Merula asks.

“I…i dont think so, we have never been in a place like this or…did you say it feels…old?”

“Yeah, like, very very VERY old”

“...Ancient magic…of course, Merlin was in my head, he casted that ancient spell that I had to control for a bit, that's probably why you can see it!”

“Wait waitwaitwait, Merlin? as in THE Merlin?!”

“Its a long story, but yeah.”

“Fine, whatever, so you have used this “ancient magic” before? Can you use it now? maybe it could give us the advantage out there!”

“I don't know, i-i used it once, maybe twice, it's hard to control, but i might have an idea of what to do”
You look at your hands and the wand you are holding, feeling its weight and texture on your fingers.

“I guess that's better than nothing, we got something to work with”

“So, vhats the plan now?” Willow asks.

“Well, those things are still looking after me, so I might be able to get their attention away from you for a moment” Merula says while standing up.

“Then we´ll make our way to the plaza, we are almost there so it shouldn't take too long, and i guess that bright thing in the center is important, maybe we´ll know what to do once we get there and see what it is”

“Sounds as good of a plan as we are going to get” Merula scoffs.

You all stand and turn to go outside but see a bunch of creatures still waiting for you.

“I guess zhis is zhe perfect moment to try zhat ancient magic? Is zhere anyzhing ve can do to help?”

“Just stand back, im not sure how much i can control this spell without Merlin´s help”

Willow, Olivia and even Merula stand back and hide behind the table while you stand close to the door, just outside the range of the creature's claws.

The moment they see you, they all group together next to the door trying to get in or get you out.

You take a deep breath, you stretch your limbs and crack your neck, just to be sure.

“Here we go…”

You try your hardest to remember the feeling when you casted the spell that Merlin taught you back in the training room. You think of thunder, of dragons, of how your stomach felt empty, and slowly, you feel your wand becoming warmer.

“I think its working!”

“Focus or you´ll kill us all!” Merula screams.

“Right! Sorry!”
You feel a tingling sensation running from the center of your stomach, going across your chest, through your arm, hand and finally concentrating into your wand.

“Like Merlin said, “just like a whip”…”
>Roll 1D100+15 to cast the ancient spell, best of 3, have to beat a DC: 80.

Rolled 62 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6437182

Rolled 42 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6437182

Rolled 57 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6437182

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>6437223
>77
>>6437225
>57
>>6437331
>72
Oh boy...that was close, but still not enough.

Here comes the tough part...

A limb or a party member?
Chose an option and please roll a 1D4.

Pay no attention to the roll in this post

Rolled 2 (1d4)

>>6437414
limb

Rolled 4 (1d4)

>>6437414
already lost one limb, might as well sacrifice another one

we still missing 1 roll from >>6437225
In order to keep things moving, i´ll wait until tomorrow, if we dont have anything by then, i´ll roll myself or ask somebody else to do it

Rolled 3 (1d4)

>>6437414
limb

Rolled 1 (1d4)

>>6437421
>>6437500
>>6438581
Alright, limb it is. Im just gonna do a quick roll to make sure of something and we'll continue soon!

Rolled 4 (1d4)

>>6438610
>each number was supposed to represent a limb
>got all 4 limbs
i was counting on going with whatever limb came up twice...what are the chances of this?
anyway, allow me to roll once again to clear this up.

>>6438611
soooo...
>1 = left hand
>2 = right hand
>3 = left foot (the one we are missing)
>4 = right foot
uff, things are gonna get pretty tough because of this...

“DRACO TONITRUALIS!”

You fling your wand like you would a whip and instantly hear the thunderous crackling exploding out of the tip of your wand.
For an instant, the entire room is covered in a blinding blue light, so strong you know you will see spots for the next few days, spots shaped in the form of a dragon head.

In less time that it took you to blink, faster than thunder, the electric spell hits the first creature that encounters at the door and then travels down the rows and rows of creatures behind it.
It surrounds the entire outside of the building, hunting the nearby strays and the ones who are still climbing the building.

For a brief moment, less than a second, you could see the thunder dragon bouncing from creature to creature, shocking everything and everyone it could find.
When a creature is hit, it convulses and writhes, and with each following shock it gets, its body starts boiling hotter and hotter, going from pure black to brown, then red, then orange. It doesn't take long for them to go into a very bright yellow and finally a pure white before most of them explode. A few of them break into pieces and melt into the ground, leaving behind a charred body.

It worked, most of the creatures that were following you are now down for good but you have no time to celebrate.
You shake your wand to end the spell but as you do so, you feel the stinging pain of hunger hitting you with all its might, you feel all your energy leave your body and stumble forward. You were about to land on your face when a sudden pain jolts you awake.

It was too fast for you to notice, but the spell didn't disappear when you tried to end it, instead it kept going, bouncing around without a clear target until it landed on you.

Your wand flies out of your hands and rolls into a corner of the room, letting the spell go unchecked until all its magical power runs out.

You didn't even notice yourself going unconscious until you were woken up by a warm sensation going across your body.
The first thing you do is take the longest breath you could, filling your empty lungs with as much air as possible. Just when you think they are full, you keep going, panicking at the suffocating feeling of your lungs never being completely filled.

It takes a couple of minutes until you can feel your lungs starting to slow down, something you are not pretty sure is a good thing because you can feel them burning from the inside, in fact, your entire body feels extremely hot inside, it hurts to breathe, it hurts to move, like you were turned inside out and left to bake under the sun.

Your vision is still blurry, but you think you recognize the colorful blobs in front of you.

“Oh mein Gott! dir geht's gut!”

Willow hugs you, you notice you are on the floor, sitting on top of some old burlap sacks and your spread out coat to form a makeship bedding.

“Wha-” You struggle to swallow the knot in your dry throat “Wh-what happened?”

“You took down all zhe creatures, but zhe spell ended up hitting you.”

You pat yourself and feel the skin on your hands all sore and reddish.

“We have been casting every single healing spell we know on you for the last 20 minutes, we weren't sure you would wake up” Says Olivia.

“I'm almost positive you died for like 2 minutes there” Merula says from the other side of the room, sitting on top of the table you used as cover before.

“Hwha…”

“Yeah! we all saw your skeleton for a few seconds while you were being electrocuted, it was wicked!”

“Merula, shut up!...But she is right, you got hit pretty bad, how are you feeling?” Willow says while moving a few strands of hair away from your face.

“Im feel very warm…i think i might have some internal burns”

“Yeah, you´ll probably have some internal scarring for the rest of your life if you don't go to St.Mungos, or whatever is left of it, soon” Merula begins.
“Electrical damage is extremely difficult to fix, even more so given how electricity messes with magic and viceversa”

“What are you talking about?” You ask a bit confused.

Willow looks at you a bit surprised.
“You don't know? Vait, did you take Muggle shtudies vhen you vere a shtudent?”

“No i didnt, it was an elective class, i took advanced charms instead”

For a split second you thought she looked offended, but she got over it pretty quickly.

“Ve still don't know the specifics, but electricity has some veird properties vhen interacting vith magic, depending on zhe amount, they tend to cancel each other out or the biggest source eliminates zhe smaller one”

“Ok…what's that got to do with me?”

“Try casting a spell” Merula says dryly.

You try casting a simple “Lumos”, you are still hurting a lot afterall, you don't want to push yourself…but the tip of your wand only flickers and produces a single spark.

“Oh that's not good…”
You try again and the same happens.

“You should be fine in a bit, magic should come back to you soon” Merula assures you.
“Im more interested in that spell, i have never seen a spell being able to produce electricity like that”

“No way, surely there are some spells that can create it”

“Mmmno, not that I'm aware, sure, there are spells that allow us to control the weather and summon electricity, but nothing as powerful and direct as that spell, what was it called again?”

“Draco Tonitrualis, the thunder dragon spell, Merlin made me cast it some time ago to learn to control ancient magic, but it's very tricky”

“Sure looks like, but it might be our “get out of jail free” card in here, that thing did a number on those creatures outside”

You now remember the horde of creatures that were surrounding you and instinctively try to stand up.
You feel a burning sensation on the soles of your feet and fall back down in pain.

“AAGH! Nngh! what the hell?”
You painfully and slowly take your boot off and see that your foot has sustained severe burns, the skin even darkened a bit.

“Ahh great, sure, why not?”
Just to check, you remove the boot from your prosthetic foot and see that it has melted a bit, the surface has warped and it's giving a slight smell of burnt wood, you can still move it though, so it still works but you can tell it's going to give you problems later.

“*sigh* dammit…Willow, think you could give me a hand?”

You put your boots back on and Willow helps you stand up, you are leaning almost your entire weight on your prosthetic foot, you can feel some of the melted bits digging into the stump of your leg.

“Can you valk?”

“Barely, but I think I can make this work, it's not like I have any other options anyway. Cmon, we have to make our way to the plaza, we are almost there.”

With Willow's help, you limp your way down the building, sometimes jumping on a single foot when the pain becomes a bit too much.
By the time you are outside the building, both Willow and Olivia are helping you support your weight to make it a bit easier on you.

“I just checked the area, we have a straight, clean shot to the plaza” Merula says as she floats down in front of you.
“We should be there in about 15 minutes.”

“Alright, finally some good news, this should be easy”

“Yeah, about that…”

…

20 minutes later, you are standing at the entrance of the plaza, from there you can see the remnants of a still on-going battle.
The sounds of screams, the lights of casted spells, they were all coming from the battle happening at the center of the plaza.

Surrounding what appeared to be a small army were the bodies of hundreds of those black creatures, some torn to pieces, some impaled on spikes of rock, a few burned down to a crisp and others frozen in place, you even think you see…bullet wounds in some of the creatures. The entire area was covered in red blood from several human bodies and the purple puddles from the black creatures.

At the center of it all, a bright shining…thing…it appears to be some sort of machine that came out of the ground, still halfway submerged into some sort of exit tube that came from the ground, you see a few oversized gears slowly spinning, some strange colorful liquids seem to move inside some glass pipes.
Whatever the purpose of this machine is, you have no clue.

“Is that the god damn Mirror of Erised?” Merula points out.

On top of the machine was the legendary Mirror of Erised, the magical object that showed whoever gazed upon its reflection their deepest desires. It was the source of the light and it appears to be getting stronger by the minute.

You were almost lost in thought wondering about the mirror when an explosion goes off near it.
It pulls your attention back to the battle happening around the machine.

On one side, a small army of what appears to be mostly Hogwarts students, you think you notice a few aurors and even a couple of magical creatures you can't recognize at the moment. All of them appear to be aiming at a single target.

On the other side was said target, Harry James Potter, casting spells, blocking and deflecting incoming attacks.

It's a whole army against an army of 1.

However, something strange happens.

As they are fighting, more of the black creatures rush out from the same towers you saw before, like a line of warrior ants, they rush towards the center of plaza, aiming for the machine, but as soon as they get close, both the army of students and Harry team up to take the creatures down.
Once the creatures stop coming out, they resume their fight.

You and your team are watching from right outside their combat arena, hiding behind some knocked down pillars.

“Im confused…they are fighting each other, but they are both clearly defending that machine thing from the creatures”

“Should ve help?” Willow asks

“Help who?” Responds Olivia.

“Maybe we could try asking?” You say and immediately duck down when an explosion goes off near your hiding spot.

“I think they have gone way past the point of talking, those are Hogwarts students, Potter has always made it a point to protect the students above everything…whatever he is doing is clearly beyond that…” Merula points out Harry parrying an attack and sending it back, directly hitting a student and sending him straight into some rubble.

“Whoever you help, you better make sure you choose right, because once you do the opposite side will most likely go against you and i don't think they will change their mind…So who would it be?”

>Help Harry fight against the army of students. (Roll 10D100) (no bonuses due to your injuries) Each roll has to beat a DC:50
>Help the army of students fight against Harry. (Roll 1D100+75) (10 from Willow, 10 from Olivia, 5 from Merula, 50 from the army, 0 from you and your injuries) Have to beat a DC: 150
>Try to make them both talk to figure out who to help. (Roll 1D100+18) (36 from Willow's popularity with the students, halved due to Harry's presence) Have to beat an opposing roll from each side (2D100)
>Other: (Write in:)

Send Merula to look into the mirror?

Rolled 52 + 18 (1d100 + 18)

>>6440379
>>Try to make them both talk to figure out who to help. (Roll 1D100+18) (36 from Willow's popularity with the students, halved due to Harry's presence) Have to beat an opposing roll from each side (2D100)