Oleandra's blade sang through the air in a neat, gleaming arc, and the helmet of the first Guardian flew free with a ringing peal of metal. Unperturbed, the now headless suit of armour slashed at her with its own sword, forcing her to pirouette away to avoid the blow in extremis.
"Bloody good show!" shouted the portly man, shaking his fists excitedly. "Have at them!"
"I was wondering if she'd simply seen their reflections, given that she happened to be looking down when the Guardians rose out of the Map Pool," mused the grey-bearded man. "But watching her now, it's plain she can truly see them…"
Oleandra's brow furrowed in concentration as she evaded two consecutive slashes and raised her sword to parry a third, allowing it to slide off her blade before twirling and taking its arm off in a downwards cut in one seamless motion.
"Where could she have possibly learned to do that?" gasped the turbaned man. "Weren't fencing lessons discontinued because of lack of student interest!?"
"Would you please keep quiet?" Oleandra called out irritably. "This is difficult enough as it is without you lot commentating in the background!"
The sounds of metal on metal continued to ring out in quick succession as Oleandra backpedalled under the relentless assault of the animated suits of silver armour. Her arms were beginning to tire; the Guardians' blows were heavy, and her Dusk-Elf bloodline had thinned considerably since the death of her heart's rightful owner.
"Suit, help me!" Oleandra called as her back hit a wall.
There was nowhere to run but up.
Oleandra shot into the air, but the Guardians were already drawing back their sword arms, ready to hurl their weapons like javelins. Even with Suit the Lethifold wrapped around her as a shield, its tough hide was far better suited to ward off spells without impact and cutting blows; the blunt force of a thrown blade would still be enough to shatter her bones.
"Elha—"
Reflexively, Oleandra first called for Elhaz, the rune of the Cygnus constellation that unlocked possibilities and protected against attacks, before recalling, just in time, that the vast telluric power swirling underfoot cancelled out the magic of the stars.
"Eadha!"
Oleandra braced herself for impact, but the Guardians' thrown swords and lances shattered against her as though made of glass. They held out their hands, drawing back the fragments and reconstituting their blades, but Oleandra wasn't about to let this chance slip through her fingers.
Without warning, she flipped upside-down in midair. Arm outstretched, she spun on the spot and decapitated each Guardian in a single rotation. Now all five headless, the suits of armour tottered about, groping blindly for their target.
"Straif!" Oleandra yelled, pointing the tip of her sword down at the Guardians.
"No, you fool!" exclaimed the grey-bearded Wizard. "You'll bring the entire castle down on us!"
Untold power coursed through the stone beneath Oleandra's feet, where the telluric energies of two ley lines intermingled. To draw upon this ancient magic for Eadha the Aspen-tree ogham and shield herself was one thing; to wield such immense force against the very repository of magic it originated from was quite another!
"Not again…" groaned the portly Wizard. "Let's hope the Goblin silver shielding will hold…"
The blackthorn rune, Straif, was also the rune of sulphur, and as such, quite explosive!
BOOM!
The five Guardian statues, already badly damaged from their initial bout with Oleandra, disintegrated at once in a flash of purple light. The quicksilver in the Map Room's pool rose instantly to meet the beam lancing from the tip of her sword, only to vaporise into hissing steam where it touched her magic.
BOOM!
A second, even louder explosion rang out as the bedrock beneath the pool shattered, sending the remaining quicksilver rippling outwards like a pebble dropped into still water; but as the droplets fell, they slowed, until the room shimmered with silvery lights suspended in time.
"Young woman, listen to me very carefully!" the grey-bearded Wizard shouted at her. "You must go down into the repository and stabilise the ancient magic within! It has already exploded once before in the past, and the bedrock the castle stands on won't endure a second detonation!"
Oleandra paused mid-turn, just as she was about to Disapparate.
"What do you want me to do?" she said helplessly.
"You already seem somewhat versed in the language of ancient magic, so I'm certain you'll know what to do when you see it in person," said the turbaned man. "You'll find an orb made of goblin silver in the cavern below; you must tame the wild magic within, then repair the repository! Now quickly, there's no time to lose!"
Oleandra nodded, then flew into the yawning crack at the centre of the drained pool. She could hear the bedrock groaning and rumbling as she fell through the darkness, feel the vibrations pulsing from the crevice walls through the air itself. She accelerated her pace, nearly smashing into the ground as she emerged into a strange cavern like a lightning bolt. She swooped up just in time to avoid turning into an Oleandra crepe.
"Eadha!"
Oleandra hastily cast a Shield Charm to ward off the stones tumbling from the ceiling. The cavern looked on the brink of collapse— actually, it looked as though it had already crumbled once before. Twisting silver spurs held back the walls, floor and ceiling from converging, forming a tight net; from their warped and broken forms, Oleandra guessed they had once served some decorative or arcane purpose. They weren't meant to restrain the rock pressing in around her.
"That must be the repository," Oleandra murmured as she looked up.
An orb of shinier silver than the surrounding spurs floated ahead. It was not perfectly uniform: light pulsed from the gaps between the twisting metal shapes that formed its sphere… and something told Oleandra that it was not meant to shudder, groan, and emit blinking arcs of magic as it now did.
"Reparo!" Oleandra chanted, pointing the Elder Wand at the orb.
Nothing happened.
"Well, I'm out of ideas," Oleandra sighed. "I suppose I'll have to get closer and do as the portraits instructed…"