Lys was staring at the object resting against my chest with such naked lust that I thought she might just start to drool. Or have an orgasm. That would be fuun. I could just imagine her rolling around on the floor moaning and rubbing the Resurrection Stone all over her body. Ahem! No, not gonna go there. Focus! Anyhow! Over the summer I'd set the stone in a pendant I'd shaped to look like the Eye of Agamotto from the Dr. Strange movies from back home. Nowhere near as intricate of course, I hadn't bothered with all the various arcane symbols inscribed on the original, way too much work, and instead settled for a smooth design made of gold I'd sourced from my little hoard in the Room of Hidden Things.
I admit, I was rather proud of it, not only did it animate like the original eye, but it would also rotate the stone within three times when touched in the correct places, but I'd been able to, with a great deal of help from Rowena, to place some impressive anti-theft features on it, ranging from really creative to truly horrifying. With Rowena's help, I'd been able to not only place ten, but eleven enchants on this little baby. I was now, informally, a master enchanter. Quite the feather in my cap.
I didn't think Lys would try to steal it, from my interactions with her prior to the summer hols and her adherence to the ways and traditions of the dwarves, for the most part, would likely make her hesitate. Stealing and backhanded dealing were what goblins did, not dwarves, after all. I figured I could count on her reverence for the dwarves and her hate of the goblins to keep her on the straight and narrow, and if that wasn't enough I also had enlightened self-interest to fall back on. Still, it always paid to have four or five contingency plans ready for when people decided to surprise you.
I didn't begrudge her obvious desire for the artifact. The stone would give her a path to recover her peoples' lost knowledge and skills, something she had likely thought impossible up until a few minutes ago. I could imagine what was going on in her head at this moment, the future she was imagining. Time to derail it a bit. I pull out a book and toss it onto the table in front of her
Lys flinched, blinked confusedly before looking down at the book and then picking it up. "What's this?"
"That would be the next step in your training. It's a guide to the art of Occulomancy, it teaches you how to ward off people trying to take a walk through you noggin'." I told her seriously. "Something you will have good use of going forward."
Lys gave me a dubious look. "Who would want to read my mind?"
"Right now? Probably no one." I told her honestly. "But once you get your hands on your peoples' secrets…" I left that hanging for a few moments to let it sink in a bit. "I trust you understand how dangerous the knowledge I'm offering is."
Lys looked at me mystified. "Dangerous?"
"The goblins will still kill for what you are about to learn, you don't think they won't come for you when it gets out that you have it, and it will if you want to do what you say you do. Your people are scattered, disorganized and weak; they will not be able to help you. You have enemies, right now you aren't worth presuming, but that will change the more you learn." I told her grimly.
Lys frowned at me, clearly thinking it over. "How would they know?"
I chuckled humorlessly. "Are you planning to keep everything you stand to learn to yourself, or are you gonna try to teach it to others?" I asked her pointedly. "Because if you want to get anywhere you will need to teach others, and the more who know stuff the larger the risk will be that some of them will blab and then you will be screwed."
Lys now looked somewhat nauseous and was fidgeting nervously with the book. I reach out and grab her shoulder and give it a reassuring squeeze. "Hey it will be okay, it could be worse. You could be walking around with a legendary artifact under your shirt. Most of the previous owners of the Hallows have died in violent and painful ways." I told her brightly.
She gave me an incredulous look. "And you just told me about it!?"
I shrugged and gave her a lopsided grin. "You have to trust someone or you will never get anywhere in life. I'm banking on you not acting like a stupid greedy little douchecanoe, you know. I hope I'm right." I told her and punched her shoulder lightly causing her to smile faintly.
"I'm not a goblin." She said emphatically.
I chuckled. "Didn't think you were," I told her honestly. My eyes drifted to the box she had come in with and nodded towards it. "What's that anyway?"
"Hm?" She looked at me confusedly before she followed my eyes and saw the box. "Oh… right!" She hoped of from where she was sitting and brought the box over and set it down in front of me. I looked back at her expectantly for an explanation. "It's something I worked on over the summer. I suppose you can think of it as a present."
I raised an eyebrow with a teasing smile. "You suppose?"
"Just open it." She ordered me flatly.
"Aye, aye, ma'am," I responded with a mock salute before opening the box. I blinked in surprise at what I found within.
"I knicked the schematics we made before I left for the summer. I figured it would be a good way to keep my skills sharp over the summer." She explained.
Inside of the box, on a red velvet pillow lay a gun. But it wasn't a normal gun, first of all, it had a barrel large enough for me to stick two fingers into it without much problem, it was section off in two large pieces with a thick steel ring dividing each section. It was made entirely out of brass with steel fittings and had some red lines painted in a pattern along the barrel that shaped something that looked like an eye at the center section of the barrel.
Also included in the box were twenty cartridges that were made to work with the gun, I couldn't estimate what kind of caliber that would come out as.
It was a Caster Gun! A piece of equipment that came from one of my favorite old animes I'd watched when I was younger, and still picked up every five years or so. The general background was that the magic of the universe had been fading, and to preserve it the remaining wizards had created these weapons as a cost-saving measure. Accompanying the gun was cartridges, shells, in twenty numbered varieties, each with a specific effect when fired, up to and including one that created a micro black hole.
I doubted I'd ever be able to create something like that, but I could likely create shells that replicated some of the effects with some work.
"Well, by my stars and garters, would you look at this…" I breathed in awe. "A Caster."
"I was gonna make you pay me for it, but… you know." Lys told me a bit lamely.
I huffed a laugh. "I'll look at it as a down payment then, fair?"
"Fair." Lys agreed with a nod.
I turned my attention back to the gun. I'd have to get down to enchanting it of course. I'd already worked out most of what I would need to make this piece of equipment somewhat more authentic. Then I'd have to make the shells, which would take some more time to work out. I'd have to find a good charm that would cause something to trigger on impact… or perhaps I could make use of the cascade failure that occurred when the physical anchor for the enchantment was damaged. Or both… I could do both, to enhance the effect. It would be tricky, I would need the enchantment to trigger before it collapsed or I wouldn't have the desired effect.
I'd have to call up Rowena again, and maybe Salazar, he had a truly devious mind. I bet he could come up with some really nasty payloads for my new toy.
"What is this anyway?" Lys asked from my side attracting my attention. While I'd been orgasming over my new gun she'd apparently gotten bored and taken a look at what I was working at with my microscope. "Looks like crabs."
I choked down an inappropriate joke before placing the Caster back in its case and moving over to my partner in crime. "That's my Nanites."
"Nanites?"
"They are…" I stopped for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain something like that to someone that was techno illiterate. "…small dolls, I guess?"
"Dolls?" Lys looked away from the eyepieces and gave me a skeptical look. "What use are tiny dolls shaped like crabs?"
"You'd be surprised," I told her humorously. "Unfortunately I have nowhere near enough of them yet for me to do much of anything really."
"How many do you need?"
I shrugged. "Dunno, probably in the ballpark of a couple of millions, give or take a thousand."
Lys gave me a wide-eyed incredulous stare. "Millions!? By all the anvils in Nidavellir, how are you going to ever manage that?!"
I scratched at an itch on my scalp. "Yeah, that would be the problem. I haven't worked that part out yet. I've been looking at the Gemini Charm, it can technically do what I need, but since it uses conjuration principles to work the degradation of the copies sets in almost immediately due to their size. I've been trying to see if I can accomplish something similar using transfiguration principles. But it's slow going because I really don't feel like dying horrifically if something goes wrong."
"You're experimenting with spell creation!?" Lys exclaimed. "Are you completely out of your idiot mind?!" She roared in my face.
I held up my hands in surrender. "Hey, easy. I haven't really done all that much yet. And I'm working on some safety gear that might make things a bit safer." I told her and pulled one of the straps on my Squidward harness. "I've pretty much got a remote-controlled set of arms working, now I just need some way to see it and work out if I can work my magic at a distance in that way."
Lys dragged a hand down her face in exasperation. "How did I end up in this."
"Desperation, lack of options and my winning charm." I quipped brightly.
Lys lowered her hand from her eyes and gave me a dead look. I flashed her the V sign.
Lys was not impressed.
---
I grunted as another banisher clipped me in the hip making me stagger before regaining my footing and managing to dodge the followup, which whizzed past my shoulder. I sent my own banisher towards my attacker but he had already popped away, forcing me to dodge blindly to avoid another barrage of spells. Unfortunately, luck was not on my side and one of the charms struck my lower leg head on sending me crashing to the floor in an undignified heap.
"I believe that is my win, again, sir." The cultured voice of Paddy noted unnecessarily where he was standing on a packing crate.
I groaned as I rolled over on my back before wiping the sweat of my brow and tried to catch my breath. "Thank you, Paddy. I hadn't noticed."
"You did quite well, sir. You lasted almost two minutes longer than your previous best." Paddy stated, ignoring my sarcasm.
"Yay..." I responded flatly.
Paddy harumphed as he cast some spells that cleaned me up and cooled me down where I lay. "Need I remind you that I do this at your request, sir?"
"Don't mean I like getting my ass kicked, buddy." I groaned out.
We were presently in the Room of Requirement which was currently configured to look like a common urban environment, it even sported an illusionary sky. This was my training ground, created to allow me to survive what was coming. Here Paddy hunted me relentlessly while I tried to not get hit by his banishers while simultaneously fighting back. I was getting better at the former while failing horribly at the latter. As of yet, I had not been able to tag the elf even once. The little demon would make shameless use of his ability to teleport spam to keep out of my way. I'd gotten close a few times lately, but... horseshoes and hand grenades, horseshoes and hand grenades.
I'd tried to match with Apparation but I was nowhere near good, or fast, enough to compare to the speed the little elf was capable of. I was likely years away from making Apparation the kind of second nature casting I would need to actually keep up with Paddy. His size made things even more tricky. The fact that all of these things were stuff I considered positives when I came up with this little training regime didn't make me feel any better in the here and now.
Didn't mean I would stop though. I would rather sweat and cry now rather than bleed and die later. I bet none of Piddles little group of fuckwits could dodge as I could.
Which was the main purpose of this place!
I'd designed the room after the combat doctrine that the best way to defend against curses being cast at you was to not be there when it hit. I'd noticed when I'd researched various wizarding wars that wizards in combat tended to not move around all that much, they just faced one another and cast spells until one of the combatants fucked up and got killed. Basically, if they could they would essentially duel. Things got a bit messier when the number of combatants went up, but that was fairly uncommon. Wizards seemed to mostly favor small unit combat more than anything, I guessed it was an issue of numbers since there weren't all that many wizards around, comparatively speaking.
So I resolved to fight a bit differently. I sighed, I really wished that I'd joined the army in times like this, I wasn't cut out for thigs like this. I wasn't a fighter. I didn't even want to fight. But ods were that I wouldn't have a choice when it came down to it, and I'd rather do this and maybe have a chance than not and having none at all.
My stomach chose that point to growl loudly and I winced at the gnawing pit that suddenly formed in my gut.
Enough thinking, food now.