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--

In the last thread, you:

> Got laid

> Saw Atlantis and its reflections return from the Darkness Beyond Time

> Discovered only children can pass through its borders and led a child army into it

> Discovered the truth about the Mirror of Erised

> Watched as the Unseelie were released upon the world

> Learned of what Salazar and the Beast were really looking for in Atlantis, the Cradle of Magic beneath the city, which can turn someone into something akin to a god

> Learned Potter is planning to create a True Time-turner, and leave this timeline for good

> Had your girlfriend tell you she’s prophesied to sacrifice herself to save the world

> Asked her to marry you

> Received the Mirror of Erised, the Deathly Hallows and every other weapon Hermione Granger could give you

> And while the world outside was devoured by horrors of old, you strode off to fight Harry Potter

And now…

There is a misconception among young wizards, among those who did not live through a wizarding war, of what war truly is.

As the villainous muggles swarm the field, the Duke of Rubies calls upon the powers of the Staff of the Ancients and sweeps the enemy aside with a single blow. The cunning hero finds the flaw, the purposefully wrong interpretation of his Unbreakable Vow that allows him to disobey the warlord under circumstances he’s carefully engineered and stab him in the back, ending the conflict. The armies of light and dark clash over empty plains, away from cities and people, where no one except the soldiers get hurt.

Or a spell bounces off the Dark Lord’s victim and hits him instead, sparing the world from its iron grasp. Or the Boy Who Lived fights said Dark Lord and, through a technicality between his hands, wins.

It is a common pattern among stories, though it is not because the people who wrote these stories were ignorant of war. In a world where knowledge and power are so closely related, it is often the winner of a great battle that writes about the fight and, as such, it is natural that an embellishment of what had come to pass would appear on the page, a wishful thinking which prevailed in said narratives.

Because those who had fought against Voldemort, those who had fought against Grindelwald, against any of the many Dark Lords or insane dictators of history, they all knew… Real war is horror.

--

The city of Tangier was home to 1.2 million Moroccan people, on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea from Gibraltar. Of the largest cities in the world, it was the closest to Atlantis, and it is now covered in blood. The Unseelie fell upon it and, not having a large magical population, it served as plentiful meal as the creatures made their way to the second closest great city, the Moroccan capital of Rabat, home to 1.8 million people. It lasted longer than Tangier, but that was only because it had more people.

As the expanding circle of destruction expanded across the globe and reached Europe, the next great city to fall was Lisbon, followed by Madrid. The wave of horrors which crossed in a north-east direction took six hours to reach the borders of France, leaving about 60 million people dead in its wake.

But it bought the French time to prepare.

France, with its 70 million people, took nine hours to fall almost entirely. In the most secure room beneath the Palace de Furstemberg, home to the Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France, minister Villeneuve is still alive, burning through every protection she has available, cursing Hermione Granger’s name. Her leg is gone, and a healer is desperately trying to stop the bleeding, while another tries to save her blackened arm, victim of some sort of poison spat out by the creatures.

Now that the Unseelie no longer have the rest of the country to snack on and can focus solely on the Ministère, she will not make it to nightfall.

[Cont.]

>>6239856

On Beauxbatons, there is a brief reprieve as the Unseelie take some time to create new nests, the material of their brick and mortar still screaming as their limbs are bent in the right shapes. The school’s staff use the time to repair their defenses, strengthen their barriers.

Madam Maxime knows seeing another sunrise is unlikely. She’d tell Gabrielle to run, but she does now know somewhere far enough away.

But they have bought England time to prepare.

It takes sixteen hours for the Unseelie to reach London. Takes them seventeen to pass by Abberton. Takes them twenty to reach Hogwarts. By that point, Minerva McGonagall already had the Castle sealed and the barriers being reinforced for four whole hours.

Four whole hours through which she had to watch people beg to enter. Four whole hours in which she had denied them, because to allow them entrance meant losing all the progress made on the barriers so far, and to allow the barriers to fall would be a betrayal of the thousands already inside the walls.

The Scottish witch had denied all newcomers personally, for there is no steel harder or colder than the one used to make the current Headmistress of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

At the cost of all her remaining peaceful nights of sleep, the barriers hold.

Of the muggles, there is not much to say, other that they have learned that, while the Unseelie are vulnerable to the splitting of the atom, huge explosions are not particularly effective against an enemy spread through far more of the Earth than all your nuclear explosions can cover.

--

You walk through the halls of the great workshop of Atlantis, not knowing what is happening outside the barriers of the city. The very air here feels wrong, as if Something Bad had once happened within these halls, which it had. Somewhere in here, fools had once created the disaster which had once erased this city from history, and now another fool was trying to create something to erase a part of history itself.

Down into the corridors you go. You wish you could stop to study the architecture, the runes on the walls, the instruments in the rooms you pass by, bent and warped by their trip through nothingness, yet there is no time. Not only do you have Potter to deal with, you have Salazar and the Beast to deal with too.

More than once Linda saves you, stopping before you trigger a security enchantment or trap only she can see with her Ravenclaw eyes. Still, it feels too easy. There is this constant feeling of being observed, that you’re a tiny snake sliding down a lion’s gaping maw.

Behind you, the Mirror of Erised follows silently. By your side, Linda and (pick one)

> Arty
> Apollo
> Brighton

Follows closely, none of you willing to say anything but hushed whispers.

“Noise,” you signal, and the two of them stop. You wave for the Mirror to stay behind and don the Cloak, your two friends huddling close. Invisible, you enter the room.

[Cont.]

>>6239857

Objects of warped and blackened metal litter the edges of the room, surrounding a great central area. Domed by a great half-sphere of shimmering energy, Harry Potter is working, back bent over a stone table where he fiddles with something. Above him, a Great Machine of cogs, steam, magic and mirrors, the workings of which you cannot discern without careful study.

“Did you really think,” Potter’s voice echoes, cold. “That you could avoid my eye using my cape? If nothing else, it made you more obvious than ever. I am its master, Elliot Hallaster, and it denies me no sight.”

You pull the silk off you, sighing and waving for the Mirror to follow.

“I figured it was worth a try, professor. You would have chastised me if I hadn’t at least tried.”

“Fair enough,” he says, standing up. As he turns, his left hand is covered in a strange, ancient-looking glove-like structure, holding a small open hourglass from which silver sand flows. A strange red light comes from it, along with the certainty that it is turning into something that Is Not Meant To Be. Its simple presence, from several meters away, is enough to trigger a feeling of Doom that sends chills down your spine. “But then I must also chastise you for not attempting to hex me while my back is still turned.”

“What are you doing, professor?”

“Me? I’m building my way out, Elliot.” He looks at you curiously, but there is little sanity or mercy in those eyes. Emerald eyes that cold have no right to belong in Harry Potter’s face, but those are the eyes which stare at you. “I told you. Once the lost moment arrives, my creation will be done, and I shall leave this world to its affairs. How about you, Elliot? Where is your beloved army?”

You’d given a lot of thought to this before coming in. Your first idea had been to come and fight him as he’d asked. Your second idea had been to pretend you were coming alone but actually bring your soldiers in Granger’s suitcases, then spring them on him, something he’d specifically warned you against. The third had been to bring your soldiers in, but tell him you had tricked them. That you had put them into the suitcases so they could not interfere, that you’d help him create his Time-turner as long as you took Arty with him.

In the end, what did you decide to do?

> You have left them outside and intend to fight Potter with only your two friends, and you will tell him as much

> They are in Granger’s bigger-on-the-inside suitcases, waiting to spring out at your signal. You will lie and tell him they are waiting outside

> They are in Granger’s bigger-on-the-inside suitcases. You will try to convince Potter you want to help him

> Other (Write in)

Hey everyone! It’s been a while since the last thread, but life got in the way and then this website imploded right when I was planning to start the thread again. We’re back now! The vote is, well, pretty much a redo of last thread’s final vote because the end of last thread became a mess of suggestions and the only thing that had any sort of consensus was that Linda would go with you, and even that took some digging to find in the discussion. And then the thread ended and I couldn’t make a call for everyone to lock in their votes.

So we’re doing it again! This time, hopefully, with more cohesion and a clearer way forward.

Can't we chosen ones just get along? Why can't we be friends? We have a mutual enemy and goal. Why must we resort to Highlander rules like this?

>>6239859
Oh right, welcome back you madlad.

>>6239857
> Brighton
He has personal history with potter and family.

>>6239858
> They are in Granger’s bigger-on-the-inside suitcases. You will try to convince Potter you want to help him.
Either his plan works or it doesn't and we're still fucked, right? What have we got to lose? I mean... Oh, shit, he still has a wife and kids he'd be leaving on this doomed world, in a damned timeline, right? And friends?

>>6239857
i want to say Arty because she is waifu, but no, she is for the end...i want to say Apollo next, but he feels more like a trump card, so i guess my vote goes to
>Brighton

>>6239858
>> They are in Granger’s bigger-on-the-inside suitcases, waiting to spring out at your signal. You will lie and tell him they are waiting outside

there is no fucking way in hell he will believe we want to help him, even if we ask gently or we say we are willing not to interfeer as long as we take Arty

Welcome back you magnificent bastard!
i have been WAITING for this like you have no idea, im HYPED!

>>6239878
Speaking of which, where *is* Ginny? She went AWOL with Potter, and we haven't heard shit from him so far.

If Potter managed to find his way in here, maybe she did too?

>>6239857

HELL YEAH WE'RE BACK!

Anyway, the vote:

> Arty
> They are in Granger’s bigger-on-the-inside suitcases. You will try to convince Potter you want to help him
Simple. We want to save Arty at all costs so as long as he takes us with him we're good. And then we stab him in the back like a good Slytherin.

>>6239858

Time to think a bit.

I am leaning towards trying to convince him to do the right thing. That millions are dead and he could help save a billion more if he just helped. That he was a hero once and he can be one again. That every wizard who has attempted to beat death has failed. That, as tragic as it is, Lily II is gone. And he had promised a sword to the neck of the monster Sally is now for what he did.

He thinks he can just pop back and fix everything from the start, but if Merlin himself couldn't do it, Potter can't no matter how many powerful artifacts he has stolen of the Atlantean workshop.

If it was possible, wouldn't the people of Atlantis have done it? Wouldn't have Merlin? Time Turners started this whole thing. They will not fix it.

Maybe tell him he is a coward. To try and leave this timeline and let the world be destroyed for his fucking emotions. That Lily, the real one, when she was herself, would be ashamed of him. That us and everyone though him better than running away and helping to doom the world since he is the strongest wizard here, could help fix it. That a bunch of children who have parents that might already be dead have more courage and resolve than the Boy who Lived.

>>6239870
that only works when one hasn't gone completely fucking insane

>>6239857
> Apollo
Considering this is Harry Potter, I'll go with him.

>>6239858
> They are in Granger’s bigger-on-the-inside suitcases, waiting to spring out at your signal. You will lie and tell him they are waiting outside

>>6239857

> Arty

She is our single best fighter if negotiations break down.

>>6239858

>>6240117

Basically these arguments. Make him get that even if he goes back far enough to save Lily, this timeline still exists. That people will suffer and die because he ran. That it will not even work. That every minute he wastes here mean more kids with dead parents. Tell him we are sorry but Lily II is gone but he can help us avenge her, etc.

>>6240314
+1

>>6239858
I want to say this:
>"Professor, I want you to know I married Arty yesterday (show off the rings!). My wife's here. Where's yours?"
And hope it doean't trigger him

>>6240320

I also hope, if shit goes south, we chugged every potion meant to boost us we could. At a +50 with Arty's +25 and like a +5 or 10 from Linda, a few potions and our magic destroying magic sword, we can equal or maybe beat his previous bonus. I bet he was just fucking around with his +85 and has his own wizard juice plus his BS special skill but it gives us the best chance if this turns into a fight.

IDK about taunting him about Ginny.

>>6240328
Part taunt part genuine question

>>6240344

Eh, we know she literally could not be in here due to being an adult who doesn't have a fucked up soul like Harry.

At least, I assume him being a Horcrux for 17 years and having Voldy in him is why he could enter. Could be something else that let him in I suppose.

>>6240361
iirc that's exactly how he was able to get in

>>6240314
If anything, I think we should figure out a way to get him in front of the mirror. Maybe it'll shock him out of the state he's in, or send him spiralling further, at which point we fight him anyway. Also anyone remember the prophecy that we heard that could potentially apply to him as well?

>>6240394
Well, the prophecy was:

>HE IS HERE.

>THE ONE WHO WILL TEAR APART THE VERY STARS IN HEAVEN.

>HE IS HERE.

>HE IS THE END OF THE WORLD.

It could very well apply to Potter entirely, since he was there when we opened it up. It was stated at one point that if Potter knew what happened to Lily II, he would tear the world to shreds. We can extend that to ripping the stars from heaven. Going back in time would either destroy the current timeline, the world, or it might and likely will fail catastrophically and just end the world, period.

He was "here" when Elliot opened the prophecy, so he might qualify for the first part or the second if Elliot is who was referred to in one or the other. Or IDK, Potter never tried opening the thing himself, so the whole thing might be about him or Elliot. That either could fulfill it like how it could have been him or Neville to vanquish Voldemort.

Like if our new wife died, yeah, I think Elliot might go off the rails as hard as Potter has, for example.

>>6240419
The prophecy could very well apply to multiple people
>THE ONE WHO WILL TEAR APART THE VERY STARS IN HEAVEN.
This can only be Elliot I think. IIRC some sort of Atlantean legend about the dead being stars was mentioned somewhere in this Quest so our quest to literally conquer death satisfies this.
>HE IS THE END OF THE WORLD
This can be one of three people:
Elliot - Our actions cause the end of the "current world" somehow, or maybe just the world in general if we fuck up
Harry - Whatever the fuck he's doing certainly sounds like it will end the world if it goes wrong (which it will)
Merlin - See: his current state.
Salazar isn't an option since even though he very much is evil, he just wants to control the world, not end it. And if that goes wrong that technically falls under Merlin's thing of ending the world

>>6239858
> Brighton
As much as I want Apollo or Arty here since they're stronger, I think Brighton having Godric would be a tactical advantage neither of those will bring. Plus Brighton probably knows Potter's strategies more than anyone currently present.
> They are in Granger’s bigger-on-the-inside suitcases, waiting to spring out at your signal. You will lie and tell him they are waiting outside
Trying to convince Potter is retarded. Nothing we have done so far suggests we would try and do such a thing. As such I'm voting for this option since it's in a tie with "helping" him. Essentially I'm just voting against Option 3.

>>6240597
we already know that Salazar's plan would have ended in the same way as the Merlin option, since he was unable to control The Beast that Merlin is now like he thought he could

Cool, so I can't tag each post in which each vote happened and put it in a neat little list because 4chan thinks it is spam, so fuck me, I guess.

> Apollo - 1 Vote
> Brighton - 3 Votes
> Arty - 3 Votes

> They are in Granger’s bigger-on-the-inside suitcases. You will try to convince Potter you want to help him - 2 Votes
> Convince him to do the right thing - 2 Votes
> They are in Granger’s bigger-on-the-inside suitcases, waiting to spring out at your signal. You will lie and tell him they are waiting outside - 3 Votes

I see we're starting off with a tie, as it is custom. I'll begin writing the Army in a box option, though I'd appreciate someone breaking the tie so I don't have to roll for the companion.

>>6240974
>> Brighton - 3 Votes

>>6240988

>>6240597, >>6239888, and >>6239878

>>6240992
meant it as a vote for Brighton

>>6240995
Oooh. Pardon my obliviousness, anon.

“My army is waiting outside, Professor,” you say, making a conscious effort not to let your eyes flicker towards the briefcases Brighton and Linda are holding. “You told me you’d give me a fair fight, right? That’s what I’m here for.”

“How very brave of you.” The fingers in his gloved hand still move, his work on the Time-turner not yet done. “Some might expect a Slytherin to choose more devious tactics.”

“I have a lot of Hufflepuff in me,” you say, simply.

“Last chance to run away, Elliot. Trust me, you don’t get out of this alive.” From behind the strange dome that surrounds him, he looks at you with almost pity. “Maybe you, Brighton? You’re a bright Ravenclaw, you ran the numbers in your head already, haven’t you? You know you don’t stand a chance of winning.”

“I have,” he nods. “But then again, Merlin’s legacy is all about making the odds be what you want them to be. That takes hard work.” He pulls up a silver blade encrusted with rubies. “This is Godric Gryffindor’s sword. I’ve heard you two have met once or twice, back when you were still sane and worthy of it.”

That… was not exactly why you had brought Brighton along. You’d hoped he could try to talk some sense into Potter, not antagonize him.

“I’m going to be honest, godfather,” Longbottom says. “I suppose I could have dreamt of you running away from a fight. But not even in my wildest nightmares would I think you’d leave your wife and children behind.“

There is a sharp, cold laughter.

“Leave them behind? No, Brighton. I’d never betray them like that. You see,” He reaches towards his neck and pulls a necklace with three large red gems in it. “In my travels, during me and my wife’s work with Ancient artifacts in the last few months, I have learned much. The Atlanteans, for all their power, never discovered how to bend time, for the incantations and circumstances that led to its invention were devoid of greed or a need for great change. It was a teacher, a Hogwarts headmistress, to be precise. Everyone before her wanted to undo a huge mistake, unsay that one wrong word… Not her. All she wanted was to find a solution to a frustrating and seemingly impossible class scheduling problem.”

“In her despair, she attempted to create a time machine. Not to change history, not to go to the past and ask Merlin something. Something small, simple. Humble. Just six small hours that shouldn’t change anything. Something an Atlantean would never think of. And so the first and only batch of time-turners were created. But it was a step in the right direction. A wedge in time, a wedge that could be exploited. And so, in my travels, I discovered I could use this small, six hour machine to create a true path into the past. It would take an inconceivable amount of Ancient Magic, but it could be done.”

[Cont.]

>>6241618

“And the timeline you leave behind?”

“The calculations were far too complex, I had little time and I could not bring myself to care. I knew, however, that I’d have little time to create this device once Atlantis was available to me, and so compromises had to be made. I had to find a way around the limitations my short work time would put upon my device,” he continues, nursing the gems with care. “For example, it is a device made to take only one person. Only one body. But you’re right. I couldn’t leave them behind. Also, only I could enter here, a consequence of me living with a Dark Lord in my head for seventeen years, so I couldn’t bring them here even if I did manage to create a device that could take them all away. So I had to find… an alternative solution.”

There is a long silence. Brighton doesn’t get it. You don’t get it, not at first. You only understand when you hear Linda’s gasp of utter horror. Because if transfigured people could get through the barrier into Atlantis, Hermione Granger would have thought of it, so that wasn’t his solution.

There is a chill that passes through the air, as if the temperature has suddenly dropped by several degrees.

“Professor,” you ask, trying to keep all emotion out of your voice, for you do not trust yourself to explode in fury if even a shred of it leaks out. “Where are your wife and children?”

“Ginny and the boys? Why, Elliot, they’re right here.”

Hanging from his neck, three bright red gems.

Hanging from his neck, three bright red-

“I see. I did not think them to be murderers, Professors. Or is it a lie that one needs to kill to create a horcrux?”

“What?” Brighton looks at you, then back at Potter, his face twisted in shock.

“There needs to be a death,” Potter says, and the smile on his face has no shred of sanity in it. Gently, he cradles the three blood-red gems. “But it just needs to happen near the person whose Horcrux you wish to make. That’s what happened at first, what gave me the idea. An accident while we were unmaking one of the artifacts we found, Ginny's wounds were too severe, she wouldn’t have made it. Fortunately, we had some hired help who served as binding between her and the first gem. When I came to Albus and James before entering this place, they… struggled. But I taught them all their tricks, so it was a simple matter. Now I can take them with me away from this cursed fate, whether Time wills it or not.”

There is no remainder of Potter in this place, you realize with cold fury. To call the man in front of you The Boy Who Lived would be the same as calling the person who Linda once killed beneath Hogwarts by the name Lily Potter: a lie, for it referred to something so different that calling them the same name would be an offense to the original. There was only a Dark Lord, powered by love and anger and hatred, of others and himself, a Dark Lord who desperately needed his plan to work.

[Cont.]

>>6241620

The Dark Lord points his wand at you, no, at Brighton, who is reaching to open his briefcase.

“Ah, ah, ah! I wouldn’t be so hasty! You see, I might be alone, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have eyes on the outside.”

A form skitters down from the ceiling, on all fours. It is no beast, however. The face, though warped and pale, is one you recognize, though even if you didn’t the mane of red hair would tip you off.

“Ginny…” Linda says, in a whisper. “You… You turned her into an inferi.”

“Something like that, though my technique is more refined than what you’re familiar with, made for espionage, not battle. She’s been following you from afar since you arrived, and I’ve been watching you through her eyes. And I know you have your army in there. But consider this. From the moment you stepped foot in these corridors, all of you have been breathing several kilograms of steel transfigured into air.” You gasp as he utters those words. If that was true- “So spread out it is impossible to Finite, would take considerable time to vent and is so well transfigured it would pass through any charms a Hogwarts student knows. By now it is deep into your bloodstream, and into several parts of your body. The only way to reliably get rid of its effects would be to drink an anti-transfiguration sickness potion before the effects wear off. Otherwise you’d die, quite quickly.”

“The best potionmaker I’ve ever seen, Severus Snape, took eight hours to make a batch,” says the Dark Lord, wand perfectly steady and fixed on you. “I would guess the power I put into the transfiguration would carry it along for another six, which puts it far beyond your skills. And from what I saw, my good friend Hermione Granger gave you a dozen or so if these precious life-saving potions, which means-”

“You open that briefcase, Brighton, and most of our army dies,” you complete through gritted teeth.

“Yes, though they should be safe with the limited supply of air they have in there for now, and I, of course, have a potion of my own.” He waves his wand and the half-dome around him, which you now recognize to be some highly advanced version of the Bubblehead charm, shrinks until it surrounds only his gloved fist. To provide a clean environment for him to work, if you had to guess. “Now, I have no doubt I would fall to the combined might of so many wizards, that is for sure. However, Elliot, are you willing to sacrifice so many of them? Even if you win, you still have to face Salazar after all, and from what I hear he’s surrounded by Unseelie.”

You ball your free hand into a tight fist, your ring feeling heavy on your finger.

[Cont.]

>>6241623

“I told you, Elliot,” the Dark Lord gloats. “I told you I’d kill all of you if you brought your army. You only have yourself to blame.”

Your mind races. Your army is divided into two groups of forty-something people, one in Brighton’s briefcase, another in Linda’s. Even if you open only one, at least thirty people will die once the Dark Lord’s transfiguration wears off, and he is right, you don’t have a chance of brewing more in time. It would only take a couple of breaths for the sickness to be fatal.

Could you face him with only Brighton and Linda? They had the Founders by their side, but would that be enough? Could you maybe get one of them to run outside, get only a few people to come out to help you fight? It would only take a few minutes, but against him it might as well be an eternity. Could you survive that long? And if you opened the briefcase, would you still have enough soldiers to face the Beast?

And could you live knowing that you knowingly sent forty children to certain death? Could you then pick which of them were your favorites, which ones you’d save, which ones of them would get to live? Could you look at the other thirty and tell them they just hadn’t been valuable enough? That they just hadn’t spent enough time being your friend for you to decide they couldn’t be allowed to die?

What do you do?

> Open one of the briefcases
> Tell Linda to take the briefcases outside, and return with only seven fighters
> Face Potter by yourselves
> Other (Write in)

of all the things i expected, murdering his family wasn't one of them

I honestly think at this point just let him execute his plan and then get temporally imploded from fucking up. He's running on max Slytherin pride crack and budget HPMOR redditor brainrot at the same time. This man is not Harry Potter.

>>6241623
>Now, I have no doubt I would fall to the combined might of so many wizards, that is for sure.
so it is a guarantee that he would eat shit against all of us then...
>>6241626
fuck it.
we have the knowledge and power of the founders
jump him with one army and take the potion from him, kill him and then Gemino the potion to share with everyone, might not be a perfect copy but should alst enough to brew more if necessary

>>6241637
big problem: i don't think any of us know Gemino

>>6241643
Hermione knew it by the time they all fought Voldemort so its not unrealistic to say that the spell is inaccessible, surely someone from Ravenclaw knows this, maybe Brighton? even Helga?

>>6241635
>“I told you I’d kill all of you if you brought your army. You only have yourself to blame.”
This is HeadQM saying we made the wrong choice bringing literally ANYBODY ELSE here in any way. The only option I can see us doing that isn't total party wipe is refusing to play this madman's game, telling him to go fuck himself, and going to fight final boss Arthurzar already

>>6241637
No duplicating magic potions, anon, otherwise it would destroy the potion's market. Same thing for duplicating ingredients. Something something, magical interference, something something, everyone would do it.

>>6241652
Nonsense, HeadQM is always happy to provide a moral dilemma for his players to fret over. But a Dark Lord needs to gloat and torture the hero to be a proper Dark Lord.

>>6241635
if it somehow turns out that we defeat him before he can use the True Timeturner, in theory we could use it to go back and stop our past self from telling him the truth about Lily that made him go insane, problem would be time paradox shit since changing the timeline to make him not go insane would erase him having built it

>>6241657
>No duplicating
gif related.
fine, you know what? whats gonna happen if we just let him fuck off? we can save this place without him.
Do this >>6241635

>>6241657
What moral dilemma? The real Slytherin option is to sacrifice everybody in the suitcases to kill this madman if it means winning and all the named main cast characters we care about survive. That's always how it is in all media. Nameless people do not matter. People are just tools. I hate it and I hate how meta it is. That's why I acknowledge the writer's hinting like I did there, and that's why I am proposing the Hufflepuff option of "keeping everybody alive and focusing on what matters".

>>6241660
What if using the true timeturner nukes everything like Atlantis but harder and to all timelines? What if true timeturner is itself a trap item?

>>6241657
You know what, fuck it. I'll come right out and ask it. You were intending Potter to be this boss villain that he's become since the prophecy in the Ministry, weren't you? I have full confidence none of this was preventable. However, how did Elliot desperately hiding Fitzgerald's Library from Potter's mindread after Avalon, and succeeding, affect Potter's state from then until now?

>>6241635
>look up HPMOR
the fuck kind of ending is this

>>6241662
>>6241663
we also need to figure out how to stop the fucking apocalypse that's going on outside, along with a bunch of places getting nuked

>>6241667
Actual, truthful, factual, unironic, nonshitpost, full sincerity, brutally honest answer:

It's reddit

>>6241667
A fat autistic jew manchild in San Francisco wrote that. It's quite the rabbit hole but reddit and rationalwiki and similar fedorafaggots worship this fic

>>6241666
Potter being a villain was a possibility since the start of the quest. There's a reason Helga told you to not tell him anything, which is "he'd go utterly fucking mental if he knew what happened to his daughter". Up to the point when you told him everything he could still be an ally. Had you not trusted Helga and told him things before Last Light, for example, he'd try to find a way to absorb that repository and use it to save his kid (with catastrophic consequences).

As for FItzgerald's library, he'd try to take it over and there'd probably be a big ass fight against the teachers, and him going crazy would be better known. Also, since he'd have access to greater knowledge, Ginny could have lived which would have made this probably go different depending on how other events happened.

>>6241667
It makes sense in the context, but it was not the best ending in the world, no.

>>6241662
Going away is also an option, yes.

>>6241702
I can't believe hiding Fitzgerald's Library amounted to nothing good for us! I thought that it was a vulnerability we could exploit, that to apparate in/out unknown was a big trump card, but it never mattered! I don't think we can apparate in/out of Atlantis either. And now it can never matter again because Hogwarts is under siege and lockdown and the entire planet is swarmed by endless Unseelie and has been nuked wherever. Hiding any other info but that library would have been way better for us. I know it's not our first fuckup of the quest, but still. Clearly even Elliot is not immune to being retarded.

>>6241702
>Up to the point when you told him everything he could still be an ally
When the man holds us at gunpoint and forces us to spill all we know to him or else he kills our best friends, that's that

>>6241707
> I can't believe hiding Fitzgerald's Library amounted to nothing good for us!

I'd say not having to also fight Ginny at this very moment is a good thing. Also, you discovered a lot about other subjects, including wtf was going on with Atlantis and its reflections, which you wouldn't have been able to do had Potter attacked it. Not every benefit is relevant in every single situation. Not every path was mapped from the beginning, so I can't tell you every other consequence your actions would have had, only give general references.

Also, remember to breathe, anon. At the end of the day, we're just trying to tell a good story.

>>6241715
It's real bothersome when people tell me to calm down online when I have been calm the whole time, but sure whatever. Let's see how far the trainwreck can go

>>6241708
Well in hindsight we could have tried to only tell Hermiome about Lily II. Give her the info to verify, with Bill’s story and her mother-in-law seeing Lily in the Mirror and we’d be good. With how standoffish she’s been about her she very well could have agreed to keep Lily a secret from Potter so he doesn’t go apeshit.

>>6241635
Lmao, we could just go "yeah okay, we'll leave you alone now"

Going to be my current vote because I don't think we're winning this one as is unless we come up with something good. We have the mirror right? If we could get him in front of it I think we'd have a chance, but I don't know how. Or threaten him with a anti-matter transfiguration thing but we don't have Apollo. Or maybe leave, then go after Ginny and take her as a hostage? Potter can't take her with him if we use up her 1-up, and I doubt he'd leave us unsupervised in case we tried to pull anything on him. Also, wouldn't his steel-transfiguration bomb affect her as well if he was forced to use it?

>>6241773
problem: ginny and the rest of his family are already dead

>>6241793
Potter still needs the gems to "bring them back" tho

>>6241795
already-dead people aren't particularly effective as hostages

>>6241799
They're not quite *dead*. The way I understand it (someone might need to correct me on this) Horcruxes basically work as an extra life. If you die, then the horcrux gets used to resurrect you. The only question is whether it's automatic or if Potter can use it whenever he wants to once he's left.

>>6241620
Well, it's less dire than I thought, sort of. At first, I thought he's killed them outright in his madness, and turned their corpses into gems like we've been doing to preserve fallen child-soldiers. or did he kill his sons, too, once he had a portion of their souls?

>>6241667
Neon Hogwarts Evangelion

>>6241626
>Just leave
Fine, Dark Lord Potter. Failure Who Lived. We'll save the world in your stead. have fun in your new reality, but you'll just fail there, too. A man like you've become will never stop the cascade of catastrophe that lead us here.

>>6241806
Ginny is definitely dead, because she sustained fatal wounds and her zombie is here with us. It's only his sons who may, maybe, still be alive... But probably not, since the UK has been eaten by fairies.
I hope our parents are safe in that chunk of Camelot...

>>6241626
Finally, my vote
>Just leave
Shittalk him to his face too, he deserves it
If the entire world is erased because of his time fuckup, then so be it. We've done all we can. Let's go kill Salazar and hope things work out for the best

JFC. I take a nap and Potter Horcruxed his wife and kids and turned his wife's body into an abomination. Is threatening to kill kids by turning the oxygen in their blood to steel.

Going to need some time to think this over. I suppose that one anon was right in saying the is 0 reasoning with him now.

We either leave him to fuck up and delete himself and maybe everything else or have a showdown.

>>6241623
just dawned on me, what would happen if Ron finds out what Potter did to his baby sister?

>>6241851
Endless Weasley rage fuelled by being betrayed by his blood brother and all manner of horrible feelings

>>6241851

Nothing for now since unless Ron is willing to shave off some of his soul to make it small enough to get it, he is powerless.

After?

If Potter makes it out alive?

Yeah I would not want to be Harry, especially if Ron saw AbomaGinny.

>>6241864
Will Ron ever be able to reach us here with the entire planet flooded by Unseelie hordes and nuclear radiation?

>>6241889

Kind of doubt he would leave his post unless we got word to him of exactly what Harry has done; he should be able to Apparate here, and I think most of the Fey have probably fucked off to, you know, genocide humanity, while Potter tries to play god instead of fucking helping as the only adult in the room.

God, I never liked this version of him but now I vicerally despise him.

Has a tiny bit of sympathy before, but his insane quest got his wife killed then he murdered and Horcruxed his two kids. Oh and desecrated said wife's body for a plan that has 0 chance of working.

No mercy for him at this point. He needs to be put down, old yeller style.

Kind of wondering if we have a baby mandrake we could use the voice amplifying charm on to destroy his bottle of trasfig sickness potion. Presumably, some of ours are with the army in the suitcases and would be immune to the noise.

I am also 60/40 that Potter is bluffing about the steel to air trans fig and almost about to bet on it. Wish we had Apollo to call his bluff.

>>6241908
It'd shock him way more if Elliot simply gives up against him, no trick or deception or ruse behind it at all. No Slytherin bullshit. Just straight up "okay you win, I hope you fail and eat shit you cocksucker, so long" and just walks away completely unguarded and with zero intention to fight.

Could we maybe get Apollo to transfigure some anti-matter onto his position once we're out? It'd use him up for the fight against Merlin but it'd be funny to just leave and shit on potter from afar. Also added bonus of potentially giving Apollo the rights to the Elder Wand which might make up for burning all his magic like that.

>>6241910

Just thinking about it... I am sure he is lying about the steel to O2 thing. He is being very careful to not contaminate his super time turner. Guess what asshole? Every material basically reacts with oxygen to a degree. That gives you a 6 hour limit to finish until your timeturner is bricked by being covering in steel. Also, you might have a potion for your body but what about clothes? Wand that absorbed some?

No. He is bluffing because he is out numbered.

The first rule of warfare is deception.\

>>6241914
Any appreciable amount of anti-matter would probably fuck us too. Maybe get he to toss a stone up above the workshop and turn it into a massive boulder by force-feeding him Maximas and Girding potions? Just collapse the whole roof on Potter?

>>6241918
So do we all-in him then? Call his bluff?

>>6241920

Going to think it over tonight. I have been right about some shit in this game and wrong about other crap. Will re-read stuff to see if there is more evidence.

If we could hit his project or robes with a finite, it might prove or disprove it. Detransfigure any of the oxygen that bonded to the metal or cloth and not all of it in the air if he isn't bull shiting, in which case we book it. If nothing happened, we unleash our Army and fuck him sideways.

People will still die in the second case but it would be better than him accidentally erasing us all from time when his nigger-rigged super time turner fails.

>>6241635
My only protest with this is that there is a very high percent chance Potter fucks up the world if he manages to make it.
It will undoubtedly go wrong, and it'll undoubtedly fuck him up, but I don't think the damage will be limited to just him.

We'd essentially have to speedrun going to Salazar and becoming God like that one anon last thread brought up, so Potter doesn't get the chance to make his Giga Time Turner before we're done.

>>6241933
well, i guess we better get to it, dont have time to lose here

>>6241918
Yeah I dunno, it seems plausible and I don't want to gamble the lives of all our troops on a hunch. We've lost enough already and if we win this best case scenario what are we going to get out of it? Full access to the Elder Wand? The horcruxes are merlin's anyway and I don't doubt he has some master control over them. OH!

We forgot about the Resurrection Stone! We should totally give it to Potter and see what Lily has to say about what her da is doing. I'm sure we can give him that as a freebie. Not like we're planning on using it.

>>6241936
>>6241943
>>6241933
>>6241925
So what's the verdict? Do we call his bluff and mass rush him? Could we try something like spells to cause vibrations or earthquakes that could pass via the ground beneath his shield, so that it destabilizes his true timeturner and/or himself? And didn't we get told we needed ALL 3 Deathly Hallows to be able to truly succeed against Salazar, or am I remembering wrong? I am paranoid that if we do something like impale the man formerly known as Harry Potter through the heart with Excalibur, that Harry could pull horcrux shit to put his soul into whatever is in arms reach just like Voldy used to do - or he could do nonverbal spells in his dying moments to try to get last hits or kills in

>>6242053

I think you need to sacrifice someone right as you are making the Horcrux or shortly before I think. IDK if he could pull it off if he was stabbed in the heart or even stunned then decapitated. Yes it would be fucked to kill him when he is down but he is too dangerous and deranged to live. He killed his own fucking kids for his insane plan and turned his wife's body into a monster because he couldn't let go.

Also, if going back in time isn't like a multidimensional/ multiple timeline thing, and he just goes back in this world line it is completely possible he will kill Elliot and all his friends in the past either out of spite or to keep us from interfering. He also knows about the Repository, Avalon, and where Atlantis is. Him going into this world's past with that knowledge would not be good. We would have insane God King Potter. Like imagine him going, getting a super body, then absorbing the repository's power, having releasing the Fey as a gun to the world's head. He would be worse than ArthurZar is since we stopped him from getting the Repository and he is still the most powerful wizard alive. With a super body that could harness that power, he could kill Elliot and possibly gain control over the Merlin Beast as well. It is too big of a risk to just hope he fucks up and self deletes.

>>6241626
>Call his bluff. Open one of the suitcases. Not the one with people we know.

If I am wrong a lot of people will die but fewer than if we do nothing or fight him with just 2 allies and fail. Every student here knew they were courting Death when they came. It leaves us with fewer resources to fight Sally unless we rush him if I am wrong but God King Dark Lord Potter scares me more.

>>6242063
Fine then. Changing my vote from >>6241838 to backing this one, +1
If we die, we die

>>6242063
uugh, i kinda want to call his bluff the other way and let him alone to fuck off and die my his own hand...but you are right, there is too much at stake to just leave him alone even if its guaranteed for him to die by his own hubris...
we also know that he is guaranteed to eat shit against our army, he himself said it, he is powerful, but he still cant beat an entire army on his own...changing my vote to
>Call his bluff. Open one of the suitcases. Not the one with people we know.

also, use a lot of explosive enchantments to make the whole place shake, if that thing he is making is so unstable, maybe some shaking could be enough to mess it up

>>6241943
just the small problem of Lily being erased from time, don't need to worry about his sanity since he's already lost it long ago

>>6242064

I will also say his plan is dumb on multiple levels since the past Harry would still be there and meeting your past self is apparently a one-way ticket to St. Mungo's psych ward. As if he kills his past self who went through all the shit to bring him to the point he created a True Time Turner, it might create a paradox and the universe does not like those. Also, some butterfly effect shit... it is the plan a madman, in the bad sense, would make.

I really hope I am right about the bluff. They are no names but I am not eager to see people die and not just because we will need all the help we can get vs. ArthurZar.

The Resurrection Stone has some merit. Maybe as a distraction and people who use it are doomed to die so it might increase our luck. Unbalance him at the least to hear Lily II call him a monster.

>>6241626
>Call his bluff. Open one of the suitcases. Not the one with people we know.
would we have time to try to Finite a small amount of the supposed steel-air first?

>>6242072

You have to finite the whole thing, I think. Like no partial transfiguration. Like I said, I think HeadQM has his own stuff for how spells work but if you transfigure something it has to be all of it so I assume it goes both ways.

As a final aside, I am sure any potions he has on him have anti-accio charms on the bottles. But what about the corks/lids. Use that toto make him spill all his Transfiguration Potion to throw him off, enrage him and make him fight sloppy to get one of ours if he wasn't bluffing.

>>6242075
partial transfigurations do exist, so partial untransfigurations likely also exist

>>6242081
Meh. IDK. Up to HeadQM if he would allow it.

>>6242079
+1 to this
if we cant destroy it then we can make him spill it while in the middle of our battle

Okay, how about this?

Given he's had Inferi Ginny following us for who knows how long there's no way he hasn't at least made SOME kind of prep against us. And air transfigured into steel is very much the kind of prep I think an insane Potter would do.

But at the same time we very much cannot leave this guy alone.

Here's what I propose:
> Pretend we're leaving
> Once we're outside, get enough fighters so we have enough for each person to take one anti-transfiguration sickness potion
> Come back and fuck up Potter

>>6242175
i dont think its a matter of people, its a matter of the potion taking a lot of time to brew.
we could also just:
>not fight
>walk out
>implode/explode the entire fucking building with Potter still inside using our entire army

>>6242187
I mean I kinda figured we had some already, given sending either Linda or Brighton away to fight with specifically 7 people is an option.

We'd have to test if any of the alarms Potter set up also contain defenses against taking pot shots at him from afar/fucking exploding the room he's in, but your idea also works if he doesn't.

>>6242063
I still think we need to do something to rig the battle in our favour before we fight him, otherwise we'll lose way too many people for the fight against Merlin and for what, better use of the Elder Wand? We shouldn't be fighting this on Potter's terms. We need to be cheating out the ass here, not going head to head and hoping we'll win. We're a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor, we gotta act like it.

I don't know what to pull though. Offering him the Resurrection Stone to unbalance him is the only thing I can think of. If we could get dementors or even boggarts in here I think that could help. Otherwise I'm in favour of leaving and collapsing the entire building on him/anti-matter transfiguring the place. Maybe something stupid with accelerating a pebble to lightspeed? I really don't want to lose half or more of our army here.

>>6242270
I don't think there's any advantage we could really pull if we do fight him in here. There's no guarantee Lily will even appear if we use the Resurrection Stone since she's been erased from Time itself, rather than just killed the conventional way. And we don't exactly have time to get anything else that would help against Potter in here.

So yeah, nuke the place then confirm the kill after.

>>6242364
Thing is, I imagined the Atlanteans built shit to last, what with be immortal. Hogwarts is virtually indestructible aside from maybe some Fiend Fyre fucking up the lost things version of the Room. I doubt the Atlantean construction of an important place is inferior. So I do not think we are nuking it from outside... maybe tossing Fiend Fyre through the open door would work but strong wizards have been show to be able to contain it and Harry is likely the second strongest on the planet.

>>6241626
I'll change my vote from >>6241831
to back the Resurrection stone plan... Specifically:
>Try to emotionally bait Harry into using the Resurrection Stone to get Ginny or Lilly's opinion on this. EITHER Lilly Potter.

>>6242411
Ginny was seemingly going along with it until the "accident" that killed her happened, Lily's more likely to have a significant effect

Right, there is still plenty of discussion, so I'll leave it for another half a day before closing the vote and starting to write.

>>6242190
You have about 10 potions already made that Hermione sent you. Brewing more would take many hours, but you do have ingredients.

>>6242072
According to Potter, it has spread too much through the air to be Finitable, and from what you know f magic that could very well be possible (which is why transfiguration is so dangerous). For the sake of allowing for a better vote I'll tell you trying to finite the air does not produce any results. Whether that is from there not being anything or it being too spread out, you don't know. Other tests to determine which is which would take longer to perform.

>>6241914
Free transfiguration isn't exactly a distance based thing, and at least I can't think of no way you could transport any amount of it. Also, according to a random quora article I found, it would take 0.3 grams of antimatter to make a detonation the size of Hiroshima's nuke, so... There is no such thing as a safe amount of antimatter.

>>6242053
>And didn't we get told we needed ALL 3 Deathly Hallows to be able to truly succeed against Salazar, or am I remembering wrong?
No, Hermione just gave them to you because they are all really powerful artifacts.

>spoiler
Horcruxes can only be made on people still living, through they need a death to occur nearby. It is also, according to the story you know, a ritual, and it's unlikely someone in the active process of getting stabbed could perform it. In any case, it is a *much* bigger and longer ritual to bring someone back with a Horcrux (took Voldy weeks or months to do it, and required very specific ingredients).

>>6242389
> Hogwarts is virtually indestructible aside from maybe some Fiend Fyre fucking up the lost things version of the Room. I doubt the Atlantean construction of an important place is inferior.
You are correct to assume so. The only thing you've seen scratch these buildings are Unseelie claws.

>>6242434
>There is no such thing as a safe amount of antimatter.
We could just hide behind the Mirror.

If that still won't work than hm...

Maybe we could transfigure something here into uranium then leave for an hour and come back? As long as Potter doesn't see us doing it he should start to melt depending on the size of the thing and be softer for a fight. Or maybe we can do it right now? Just transfigure whatever he's standing next to into the elephants foot.

>>6242413
Yeah, but how will she feel now that her husband is standing next to eh zombie-corpse and wearing her murdered? children's souls as a necklace?

>>6242447
Seems like there's a good chance that kills us, too.

>>6242434
Yeah I think we get 10 people to take on Potter here. Even with his horcruxes he'll be out of the way for now since it takes time for him to resurrect.

>Elliot
>Linda
>Apollo
>Arty
>Elend
>Talon
>Amalia
>Brighton
are 8. We would just need to figure out who the last 2 would be.

Speaking of which, was it ever said how strong Apollo was compared to adults? Because he lowkey could be a carry against Potter in this fight.

>>6242479

Amalia isn't here. She is knocked up.

Apollo is the only one who didn't have his shield break when we were getting ambushed by Auror level dudes ScorpiZar sent. So pretty well I imagine. We also told him to focus on battle magic when we were preping for Avalon.Elliot and Arty are probably still better in a fight I imagine but most of that is skill. For brute force work, Apollo still takes the cake.

I am sure it was 90% him in the Dumbledore-zombie fight.

>>6242434
Just to be clear, my vote is for giving him the resurrection stone and if that doesn't work leaving and figuring something else out.

>>6242507
I wonder if we can just transfigure Potter into something easier to beat, like a toad. Can't be that hard, right?

>>6242564

Meh. Human Transfiguration is hard. We would need to hit him with a spell first, which is the initial issue. When we turned Taylor RIP into a chicken, it was like a DC of like 90 and he was just sitting there zonked out from the cursed book. We shit the bed trying a transfiguration trick with LilyZar even with a Maxima potion. If Apollo was helping, it might be a different story, but Elliot is a potions and battle autist not a Transfiguration one

>>6242434
>The only thing you've seen scratch these buildings are Unseelie claws.

So what you are saying is time to go fey hunting, strap the arms we harvest together and use a couple of charms to turn them in to fast rotating nightmare drill or buzz-saw to take out the supports and the corners of the Foundry... got it boss.

>>6242447
standing behind the mirror doesn't make us also indestructable

It didn’t make sense for Elliot to have every single person he knows to be competent in a single briefcase, so I made what I thought were logical splits and went with what I believe Elliot would have gone with.

--

Whenever you distributed your army across two briefcases, you had split them evenly. That also meant your generals, so in case one of the cases was compromised, you’d still have some of your chain of command. In one, you had Arty, Helga and Elend, as Arty was the one you trusted the most, Helga was magically weak but had knowledge they might need, and Elend was a trusted commander, and you thrown Kal there too, the seventh year who helped you with the ancient runes. In the other, you had Apollo, who also competent and monstrously strong, Riley who wouldn’t leave him alone, Talon, who could help them with Charms, and Falere, who had become Head Girl for a reason.

And now you have to expose one of those two groups to potentially toxic air. For a moment, you consider going with Apollo. He is a transfiguration prodigy, and initially you think about going for him because of what Potter had said.

But Minerva McGonagall’s classes are not easily forgotten. She had drilled in you the dangers of transfiguration, of why you should never transfigure anything into gas, of how to deal with it if you had. She had made you memorize step by step lists of what to do in case of transfiguration sickness, and you knew, you knew the answer. She had repeated many times that even she wouldn’t be able to save you if something like what Potter had described was to happen, that you’d need a long stay in St. Mungo’s to survive.

Apollo would not be able to save you, not from this poisonous air. Potter wouldn’t have laid this trap if he could.

Yet not picking his briefcase meant opening the one with Arty in it, and you know she’d hate to know you had even hesitated in doing so.

Arty and Helga, you trusted them more than you trusted Apollo, which wasn’t little. In a fight, be it between armies or one on one, you trusted Arty above anyone else. You ask any Babylonian gods that might be hearing, you plead them for Potter to be bluffing.

You have thirteen potions for transfiguration sickness, fourteen if you count Potter’s. There are forty-one people in that briefcase. You make the choice, and make the call.

“Brighton,” you say, raising your wand in the starting position for a Protego, Excalibur on the other. “Open it.”

Potter’s face turns to fury and an instant later his wand is in a familiar position. You flick your wand into a Depulso towards Brighton a moment before the bright line of a “Ifullia Lumina!” passes through where his hand holding the briefcase was. But Potter is already casting again, faster than you can react with your wand. A wave of grey flies in your direction but Linda yanks you by the back of your robes and you fall down below it with a thwack, then roll sideways from a blade of yellow fire.

[Cont.]

>>6244438

“Ascendio!” You shout, launching yourself up to dodge a third spell. Fortunately, Linda takes Potter's attention with her own magic.

“Bombarda! Zitra! Stu-”

“Tulak!” A wave of compressed air booms through the room sending Linda flying. “You just killed them, Elliot! You just killed your army!”

You drop down to the floor with a “Carpe Retractum!” followed up by a “Stupefy!” but the Dark Lord reacts instantly, falling into a pose you recognise. He does not flinch when Arty appears, the first out of the briefcase, launching her own barrage of spells. No, Potter fights, simply, effortlessly, with a flow and speed which suggests the limits of the human body are mere suggestions.

High feint drawing a shield, which puts him into position for obfuscation, and which in turn flows seamlessly into three glowing offensive bolts, then a glowing blade of purple followed by two slashes of white. It is a series like any auror would learn, a series whose beginning you had seen Lily do against you, but rather than two or three spells in sequence, the Dark Lord attacks without ceasing, a rhythmic and timed flow of variety and passion combined with improvisation as three new students climb out and he’s forced to jump over two different spells before sending a glowing net of pain in your direction and an explosion in Brighton’s in the space it takes to draw breath.

Tall and terrible, the Dark Lord moves like the wind.

With one hand busy, he fights ten of you, taking time to send some spells in the direction of the briefcase, momentarily halting the flow of new soldiers into the room.

“What even is this!?” Arty shouts. “He’s worse than Crouch!”

“This- Petrificus Totalus! - is not - Bombarda! - a reasonable - Bularia! - fitness level - Stupefy! - for a forty something year old to be in!” Elend shouts through gritted teeth.

“This is not a reasonable- Protego! - fitness level for anyone to be in!” Kal shouts back, before sending luminous cords in Potter’s direction with “I went to Hogwarts to study ancient runes, not fight Harry bloody Potter! Fulgari!”

“He has killed you all! Remember that!” Potter shouts, casting a wave with a nonverbal spell that sends some soldiers crashing backwards. “When he opened that case, he knew the air was poisoned! He knew you’d die!”

“What? What is he talking about?”

“Something we’ll solve once we deal with him! Linda, are there any tactics we trained but never used?” You shout, while somewhere on our right someone screams as they get launched through the air.

“There’s Mistletoe!” She shouts.

“That works!”

“What’s Mistletoe!?” Arty asks, spinning away from a blast.

“The thing that killed the Nordic god of light! Guess which sun-themed army leader we were planning to use it against?”

“That’s just mean!”

“I told them that,” Helga shouts, chugging down an Exsimulo Potion. “They didn’t listen! Gunnaf!”

[Cont.]

>>6244439

An explosion sends some of your soldiers crashing against a wall. They don’t get back up.

“Everyone who was a Raider,” you bellow. “Mistletoe formation! Everyone else, pick someone and follow what they do, when they do it!”

Linda’s tactic was simple and created to deal with the worryingly frequent situation where Apollo would be the last standing member of Army Number Four, and still a massive threat. A half-moon formation, in which at any moment two people on each half of the formation would always be firing a stunner, so the person they were firing upon would never have time to drop their shield or react. The issue was timing and finding a way to coordinate the shots when half your army could be missing, so Linda had come with an ingenious numbering and counting system to make sure everyone could fit themselves in no matter who was gone.

It is difficult to arrange yourselves when there is a Dark Lord slinging spells in every direction, and while the briefcase with the remainder of the soldiers who still haven’t managed to come out of it gets flung around the room, a pair of hands holding desperately to its edge, you manage to make it work.

A continuous barrage of simple, fast and effective stunners flies towards Potter, and for a moment it works. He’s not expecting an army which trained for the specific purpose of taking down a single unaided foe, because aurors fight Dark Lords. And Dark Lords have minions, which defend them.

Yet Dark Lord Potter stands alone and overwhelmed, wand moving so fast to block the unending flow of spells that it looks like a blur, remains of his shields momentarily hanging in the air like broken shards of glass. His face goes from anger to worry, then, as he’s forced to take a step back, rage. His eyes straighten and he jams his wand down towards the floor.

“Mufulgur!”

The electricity spreads throughout the floor like a glowing spiderweb of hurt. Leaping from warped failed experiment to protection rune to student, it courses through the room and through you and your soldiers. You feel your muscles clamp up as every nerve in your body is set on fire, and your vision blurs as you can feel the water that made up your tears evaporate and every hair in your body begin to burn.

With Merlin knows how many volts cursing through you, it’s impossible to make the delicate movements required for the casting of a spell.

It is good for you then, that you have someone who spent the past few months learning how to use wandless magic.

“S-tu-pe-fy!” Brighton forces out of his throat, punching the spell out of his fist and forcing Potter to break his magic to block it.

There is a momentary stall to the battle, as even Potter stumbles from the effort.

[Cont.]

>>6244440

“Alright,” he says, cracking his neck, the tip of his wand smoking. “No more playing then, students. Those of you who want to flee? Take this chance. But no more taking it easy. From now on, we fight like adults.”

Your army, or at least the half that managed to exit the briefcase, hairs raised and smoking, look at you. You put your wand into its holster and hold Excalibur with both hands.

“Right,” you say, looking at him, Arty on your left, Helga on your right. Behind and around you, your allies tighten their grips on their wands. “Then like adults it is.”

“Bombarda!” The two hufflepuffs echo at the same time.

“Reneo!”

“Prismatis!”

And the Dark Lord bellows “Avada Kedavra!” filling the room with emerald green.

> Roll d100+125 (35 from your Army Rolls, +60 from your other generals and artifacts, +30 from numeric superiority). Beat 2 out of 3

Rolled 35 + 125 (1d100 + 125)

>>6244441
CMON POTTER, YOU DEMENTED FUCK! TIME TO FUCKING EAT SHIIIIT!!!

he better not have some bullshit like a +300 or something like that...

>>6244446
shit, these are LOW numbers...somebody needs to come thru NOW!

Rolled 29 + 125 (1d100 + 125)

>>6244441
DOOM

(we're so gonna die)

>>6244446
>>6244471
Oh man we're so dead.

Rolled 15 + 125 (1d100 + 125)

>>6244441
Accept and continue fighting
He's pulling AK because he KNOWS we were winning
"Were" is still "are"
Hold onto that fact

>>6244517
>>6244471
>>6244446
Dice willed this. They wanted this on purpose for the narrative!

>>6244517
Well. Been a nice quest everyone, good playing with you.

Jesus fuck.

Not a single one over 40. Should not have taken the day off to get shit done.

>>6244446
>>6244471
>>6244517
>Beyond fucked
fucking hell...there goes Arty...im sorry mini witchfu, we have failed you, Potter and his bullshit were too much

>>6244624
No way Arty dies here, the prophecy won't let her. Now Helga on the other hand... It might be her time. At least she won't disappear into the black nothingness like Merlin and the others did before, right?

>>6244440
At least we had a cool moment where we pulled an Oda Nobunaga with a firing line alternating shots constantly and applying permanent pressure. It did work... until he fucked it up

Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>6244626
who knows? HeadQM can pull anything he wants out of his pocket with these dice results...speaking of, lemme do an extra roll, i want to see just how fucked were we

>>6244636
>still under 60
oh yeah, we were fucked from the beginning...

>>6244638
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAAlEoLRuTA

don't start panicking until we know what number we had to beat, we still have a chance since he's heavily outnumbered and weakened from Mulfulgur's significant magic usage

>>6244658
>we start screaming
>turns out HeadQM had the DC extremely low because he did account for Mulfulgur fucking Potter himself up
>miraculously beat DC by 2 of 3 anyway
Wouldn't that be nice, huh?

I mean, we have a +125 and when we spared, Harry 'only' had a +85..Might have a slim chance with shit rolls. I suppose, do not lose heart yet.

>>6244692
there is no fucking way in hell that Potter didnt get a stupidly huge buff by now after all the time he disappeared + whatever he found in Atlantis.
we are beyond cooked, we are carbonized.

>>6244663
An anon can dream...

I feel it's going to be very apt that despite telling Arty that we will fight fate to save her, the roll of a dice will be our downfall.
Tragic, but apt.

On the plus side; the more we screw up, the more people die, and that solves the whole "limited anti-transfiguration sickness potions" thing.

Rolled 24, 47, 32, 85 + 100 = 288 (4d100 + 100)

>>6244446
>>6244471
>>6244517

160 154 140

Folks, I know it has been a while since we rolled dice, but you want to roll *more* than your adversary.

Ahem, so, let's see how Potter does...

--

Harry Potter's Power - Chosen By Fate:

In any Battle Roll, Potter may roll 4 dice, swap the order of 2 of them, and then use the first 3 dice as his roll.

>>6244859
It's been nice knowing you gentlemen

>>6244859

124 147 132 185

Result after best possible swap from Potter:

Elliot: 160 154 140

Potter: 124 147 185

That's... a win for Elliot, unless I'm severely mistaken. The 185 gets swapped in to avoid a triple loss, but it seem shit rolling is universal in Atlantis at this moment. Very well.

>>6244859
>Chosen by fate
>He can chose and swap
>implying he choses the biggest ones, then we end up:

>Potter
>185
>147
>132

Against

>Elliot
>160
>154
>140

GUYSI THINK WE BEAT HIM BY THE HAIR ON OUR ASSES!

we just barely came out on top, holy shit

>>6244864
That was way too close for comfort.

Now for round 2. But gods, he is a fucking monster. like 30 people, and he was kind of close to our bonus. Hope he gets a malus for next round because fuck him.

ArthurZar will be delightful to fight.

>>6244903
would you shut the fuck up?! you gonna jinx it!

Rolled 24 (1d100)

>>6244905
The dice gods take and give as they willeth. Rolling for our chances next round.

Rolled 77 (1d100)

>>6244905

Never.

I was once known as chatty-anon.

>>6244912

Big dick rolls!

>>6244913
Be careful anon, you know how rolls for big dick go in this quest

>>6245042
Yeah, sadly Elliot does not have Brandon's luck in that department

>>6245049
still amazed that we somehow turned him into a sex god

>>6245052

I mean it kind of cost him a foot with the crap rolls we had then... but yeah. It is pretty funny that if nothing more, he has 12 inches to his name.

>>6242434
>You are correct to assume so. The only thing you've seen scratch these buildings are Unseelie claws.
Now that I think about it; we really screwed up sending our parents to the tower instead of Hogwarts.
Merlin had a hand in both, so there is no reason to assume it'd be any stronger than a maintained castle.
Sending for McGonagall would've also hinted to her that something big was going down, and would allow her some extra time to prepare Hogwarts for defence.

Then again, if the unseelie can apparate or something like it, they'd still be screwed since Hogwarts protections likely don't cover the library yet since we never told anyone about it.

>>6245880
I personally think that with the way they have been described so far, the Unseelie are better fought and killed by muggle weaponry and tactics than magical ones. They seem more vulnerable to physical damage than magical damage, are able to dodge magic far better than physical attacks, cannot apparate or phase through matter, are restricted to physical mobility via swimming or flight, etc. Sure they all radiate terror and primal fear in humans due to what they are and they have extreme numbers advantage on top of being utterly unexpected by the entire planet's population, but they aren't invincible. They can die to nukes like anything else, but the entire planet is 100% grade-A capital-F FUCKED no matter what unless the God power deep in Atlantis can annihilate all these monsters worldwide via Thanos snap. Muggles and wizards all over Earth need to come together to avoid total extinction and rebuild. Surely there's still hope?

QM?

>>6245953
QM is having a rough week and working overtime because there is a deadline and holy shit do things not go as planned when people who are not him do them, but is working on the update. Probably not going to come out today, but stranger miracles have happened, let's see how things go.

>>6245880
>Then again, if the unseelie can apparate or something like it, they'd still be screwed since Hogwarts protections likely don't cover the library yet since we never told anyone about it.
Oh... Oh no. I hadn't thought of that.

>>6245961
No worries, QM. life comes first.

>holy shit do things not go as planned when people who are not him do them
I know that feel, bro.

>>6245880
>>6245968
please, do NOT give him more ideas! we are alreadys crapping by as it is!

>>6245994
even with apparition you still need to know a place exists to get there

>>6245995
you think thats gonna stop Potter? or the unseelies? or whatever bullshit HeadQM pulls out of his sleeve? hell no! we are already dealing with magical chemical warfare here, he is gonna spawn some sort of clairvoyance monster or something, fucking watch!

>>6245998
if they could teleport, they wouldn't need to just fly everywhere or be blocked from getting into locked rooms

>>6245999
only because the one that can do it hasnt showed up yet...

>>6246003
doubt he feels the need to add anything else like that when we're already at the point where even a minor fuckup would destroy us

>>6245896

I mean the Atlantis sealed the Fey as opposed to killing them all. Granted they did not have full auto .50 cals. Those kind of settle most things.We also have 40 mm auto grenade launchers. Not too sure how they would do vs that.

>>6246044
>I mean the Atlantis sealed the Fey as opposed to killing them all.
Weren't they suing them as part of their security measures for their wish-granting god machine or whatever?

>Granted they did not have full auto .50 cals. Those kind of settle most things.We also have 40 mm auto grenade launchers.
I think if guns were sufficient to stop them, and better at it than magic, we wouldn't have heard about entire countries being depopulated.

>>6246500
the problem isn't that guns don't work, just that the guns can't kill enough of them fast enough to stop them

>>6245961
oh, fun, one of those awful projects
I’m sorry to hear that QM, good luck with your project.

>>6246503

Welcome to a CWIS. The can knock out cruse missiles.

Welcome to the 30mm Vulcan.

A P90 for personal use.

I am sure the Fey are hearty but a few dozen round of AP stops most things. So do buck and ball.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnrSTkidXa8

Your eyes go wide when the green pulses out of the Dark Lord’s wand and you, for not the first time since you’ve entered Atlantis, thank Crouch for the instincts he had engraved into your brain through his training, because it is the only thing that allows you to react fast enough get out of its way, Excalibur swings low, tripping Helga with the flat side of the blade, making her fall out the way of the spell.

The spell does hit someone, but not someone whose name you know, and you hear a scream of utter horror from someone who loved them. You will learn their name, once this is over, but there is no time for neither shock nor grief, because Potter is still firing off spells. The rest of the room, however, is looking with eyes wide at him and at the body at the other end of the room.

“Drika Elum!” Helga shouts from the floor, sending out a zigzagging yellow bolt, while Arty fires off Stupefies so fast it looks like she's doing two at once. You race forwards between the spells, sword in hand as you bring it upwards against his shield. The three spells that hit it do not break it, but Excalibur does. The blade passes inches from his arm, but he twists his wrist at the last second, touching the tip of his wand against the metal and making your arm launch in the opposite direction, dragging you along, the hilt not flying off your hand through Excalibur’s will alone.

The room starts to recover from their trance-like state, and spells once again start flying again from all directions. The moment you’d bought with Excalibur is gone and they fall upon Potter’s sturdy defenses, but he’s forced to take another step back, then another.

The Dark Lord snarls, conjuring a wall, which lasts for a few seconds under the bombardment from your troops, but when it falls you can see he’s no longer holding the time-turner. Instead, he has taken the time to vanish with it and the glove, his left hand now holding an L-shaped silver object with runes all over it.

The first bullet comes in your direction. It crashes through your shields, passes an inch from your ear, goes through the protego of someone behind you and hits them in the shoulder, then explodes, completely removing the member from the body it is attached to.

You jump behind a pillar, where you can see Elend with eyes wide with surprise and fear.

“What the fuck! Elliot! What the fuck!?”

“Well, he did threaten to shoot him if he ever came close to any apocalypse machines,” Linda says from a neighboring pillar, regaining her breath and steadying her shaking hands. “So it tracks.”

“You’re way too calm about this!” Elend shouts.

“It’s the absolute terror I’m feeling, it helps me dissociate and keep functional! Doesn’t work for Gryffindors, you’re far too brave for that!”

A second shot rings out and a bullet hits the side of the column you’re hiding behind, reflecting off the stone twice before losing energy enough that it falls off on the floor harmlessly.

[Cont.]

>>6246643

“He didn’t miss that, did he?” You ask, swallowing hard.

“No, he absolutely expected it to explode against the pillar and take you out with it,” Linda nods.

“Well, let’s thank Atlantis' well-built structures for my continued life, then.”

“Elliot, I don’t think we’re getting out of this without killing him,” she says.

“Yeah, I’m aware.” Somewhere you can’t see, you hear a boom and Brighton’s scream as he gets launched in the air. “But I don’t expect anyone to be casting the Killing Curse, so we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

“Right,” Elend says, regaining some composure. “We could try-”

“Avada Kedavra!” Potter shouts again, and the three of you jump off from where you’re standing. You twist your body mid-air to see the emerald spell pass through the pillar you were hiding behind, then through the place you were just in, then harmlessly through the wall to the outside. Then there is another bang, and you see Potter is aiming directly at you as you soar through the air, having expected you to jump out of the way.

There is the sound of metal against metal as Excalibur suddenly finds itself between you, deflecting the projectile just enough that it only clips you in the side of the stomach, not hitting enough mass to trigger its explosive enchantment. It bounces off the wall and hits a student, taking off their foot.

You fall on the floor and scurry off behind a pillar before shoving your hand into your pouch and tossing some Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder on that side of the room. That section of the room goes instantly dark and you dash to a different location. For the moment Potter won’t know where to fire, but there was no Hand of Glory included in Granger’s care package, so you’re equally blind.

“Linda!” You shout in the darkness, always moving in random patterns. You let go of Excalibur, standing perfectly upwards against the floor, while you search for a healing potion in your pouch, your left side bleeding. “I need plans! Could we do Spinning Dyrnwyn?”

“There are too many people here! We’d hurt more of our own than him!” She shouts from somewhere to your right.

“Upwards Caladbolg?”

“Ceiling is too high!”

“Reverse Tonbogiri?” You ask, naming a third plan based on a mythical weapon.

“Not unless we can get him to go away so we can set it up!”

A sudden blast of air coming from Potter’s direction swirls through the room, spreading the Darkness Powder through the great workshop and making the entire room only slightly dim instead of completely darkening a portion of it. You grab Excalibur and duck out of the way of a spell, gritting your teeth.

[Cont.]

>>6246644

You can see Potter is slipping. Even he can’t maintain a fight like this against so many people for too long. You don’t doubt keeping the current plan would get you results, but the cost would be high as Potter is no longer pulling his punches. It’s not just about death, there are injured, some of them with wounds that will stop them from fighting on, a constant number of soldiers getting hurt every moment the battle lasts.

Alternatively, you do have the supplies Granger gave you. Volleys of Erumpent potions, acid flasks and directed releases of tempests in a bottle could put Potter in a corner, but if Potter had a plan to deal with those and managed to turn them on you, it could cause great damage to your formations and future attacks.

And at the same time, while dealing with droves of students, Potter is very clearly focusing on you. Going closer and staying closer instead of diving behind a pillar when Potter shoots at you would open him to more attacks and reduce damage to your army, but it would also increase the chance of you getting severely hurt. With the spells he is casting, whatever injuries you take are not going to be the type to brush off, at least not without St. Mungo’s to grow a few limbs back.

> Keep on firing, overwhelm Potter with your numbers
> Use Granger’s resources against him
> Close in, fight Potter with sword and grit
> Other (Write in)

>>6246645
No chance we can throw Godric's sword at him and have him sword duel Elliot 1v1, chosen one vs chosen one?

Oh right he's no longer a chosen one. In fact that's not even Harry Potter there anymore, just some edgelord freak masquerading with his skin on.

>>6246645
> Other (Write in)
>Give someone we trust indication to petrificate his ass while we bait Potter out, all we need is to paralize him long enough sor SOMEONE to deal the killing blow, doesnt have to be us, doesnt have to be Avada Kedavra, could be Brighton with a powerful bombarda to the head or Arty with a Difindo to the neck, ANYTHING

>>6246648
doubt there's anyone here who hates him enough to be able to cast it so this is probably the best chance we have to get him with only putting ourself at risk, there's just the problem of him also noticing... would wandless magic work for this?

>>6246650
there is a very low chance of him noticing a single person while dodging an army of spells while he is also trying his best to bust a cap on our ass, it should work as long as everybody keeps bombarding him with spells, not even him is THAT good, there is a hardcap limit to human skill even if said human is still being aided by magic.

>>6246645
> Close in, fight Potter with sword and grit

This is the coolest option. Ergo, I shall select it. We have Excalibur for a reason.

>>6246645
> Close in, fight Potter with sword and grit
I wonder if we could telefrag him?

>>6246717

Not sure but we should be able to Apparate and hit him from odd angels. We already got him one time with the sword of Kings.

He is good with physical self-defense but Ex guides us. Let us beat Brighton when he had the second most famous sword ever. I mean, like after Durandal.

Considering the thing became? No holding it back.

>>6246645
> Close in, fight Potter with sword and grit
Grangers resources are better spent on the unseelie, and if we don't land the killing blow we lose out on the Elder Wand.
Potter is also extremely adept against all magical forms of combat, but while he may be good in hand-to-hand, he's never fought someone with a living sword yet.
Our combat rolls are also very high so I feel it might be best to rely on them as we've likely lost a lot of the bonuses from the army by now.

The darkness is also likely useless, as I imagine Potter will just use Ginny's vision to circumvent it. So it's best to not factor it in too much in any other plans.

>>6246645
>> Close in, fight Potter with sword and grit

>>6246645
> Close in, fight Potter with sword and grit
Excalibur will help us slay him

>>6246645

> Close in, fight Potter with sword and grit

>>6246645
> Close in, fight Potter with sword and grit
Fuck him up Bright Lord Hallaster!

>>6246979
>>6246818
>>6246806
>>6246789
>>6246782

Very well.

> +50 from your Battle Rolls
> +30 from Excalibur
> +30 from other generals and artifacts (halved, as you'll be close range making it difficult for them to not shoot you)
> +20 from numerical superiority (Increased from more people coming out of the briefcase, but also halved for the same reasons)

> Roll a d100+130. Beat 2 out of 3

Rolled 57 + 130 (1d100 + 130)

>>6247045

>>6247048
Above half is good right? RIGHT?!

Rolled 28 (1d100)

>>6247045
Come on...

COME ON!!!

Rolled 11 + 130 (1d100 + 130)

>>6247045

Rolled 69 + 130 (1d100 + 130)

>>6247045
oh boy...

Rolled 14 + 130 (1d100 + 130)

>>6247053
I can roll again and it'll count because I forgot to add the bonus, right?

>>6247048
>>6247053
>>6247054
i knew getting close with the sword was a bad fucking idea...why did you guys vote to get close with the sword!?

Rolled 57, 75, 44, 8 + 100 = 284 (4d100 + 100)

>>6247048
>>6247053
>>6247054

187 158 141

Oof... Let's see if Potter can take advantage of your fumble.

>>6247058
GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!!!

>>6247058
why are we counting the guy that fucked up his roll

>>6247060
Because his second roll was even worse, and I wouldn't have ignored it if it was high, so I won't ignore it if it was low.

>>6247058

Elliot: 187 158 141
Potter: 157, 175, 144

On an unrelated question, which limb do you think Elliot is less fond of?

>>6247058
Well, one win means we're still in the game. It also means more dead children which also helps our situation.

>>6247060
Why shouldn't we? Forgetting to add the bonus in the roll doesn't change the outcome. We just add it after.

>>6247064
>On an unrelated question, which limb do you think Elliot is less fond of?
The arm that Salazar cut off. He probably wouldn't mind losing it again, and it'd be funny.

>>6247069
i guess this is thr most poetic option, we lost it before, might as well go for the familiar feeling

Rolled 4 (1d4)

>>6247064
Actually:
1 for left arm;
2 for right arm;
3 for left leg;
4 for right leg.

>>6247057

It is cool.

Simple as.

I mean, any roll in a HP Quest is cursed.

Why I went to go warm some food for like five minutes and did not try to roll annoys me.

>>6247074

Oh. He lost a bit of leg too?

He can match another guy.

>>6247064
Can we go with losing an eye?

>>6247056
I sure hope not...

>>6247073
>It is cool. Simple as.
This guy gets it.

>>6247078
not really a situation where you can lose an eye without also dying at the same time

If you want your army to survive with minimal losses, then the way forward is clear. To have someone at the forefront of the action, someone upon whom all harm will be directed to. If that person is weak, they will get destroyed, but if that person is strong, if that person is good enough, they’d be able to hold Potter back while the rest of the army wears him down.

And with Excalibur’s help, there isn’t much of a doubt on who is the only possible focal point.

“Arty!” You shout through the chaos that is the workshop. Blasts and screams fill the air. “Do you still remember our plans for Rhongomiant!?”

“Elliot, that’s insane!” Arty shouts. “He’s going to kill you! I’m not losing my groom!”

“Then you better make sure he doesn’t get a chance to hit me! Ascendio!”

“You utter prat! Ascendio!”

Rhongomiant was, of course, King Arthur’s spear in Welsh legends. You had seen no evidence that it was real, but you reasoned that, given that there was no one real Rhongomiant, any sufficiently sharp object which once belonged to Arthur could be referred to as Rhongomiant, so long as it was moving sufficiently fast and being sufficiently hurled at the general direction of an enemy.

Just as you crest your ascent and begin to fall, Arty rises above you, positioning herself so you are exactly between her and Potter.

“Depulso!”

You fly through the air, Excalibur in hands and aimed directly at the Dark Lord fighting your army as you are accelerated by the spell. At the last instant, Potter raises his wand, blade falling against barrier in a flash, the wave of power pushing both of you away from the point of impact. His shoes screech against the old marble, his furious eyes fixed on you even as his body and wand move to counter the spells your army throws at him.

You race forward, thrusting Excalibur, once, twice, thrice against him, but he parries faster than your eyes can follow, inhumanly fast. He raises his gun at you and you spin your sword, using it to move the gun away from you. His wand comes forward, mid-spell when he’s forced to stop to block a hail of hexes from your army.

“Don’t hit Elliot!” You hear Arty shouting. And then, unexpectedly, “Or Brighton!”

A second blade comes towards Potter, hilt encrusted with rubies, and Potter ducks. Brighton, eyes fully dark, fights side by side with you. You haven’t trained with him much, not nearly enough as you have with your other friends, but you have fought against him, which is very much similar. You lunge when he feints, opening an opportunity for him to strike, clipping Potter on the shoulder. Potter, however, weaves through your blade, always positioning himself so you two are placed between him and your army, making it difficult for their spells to hit.

"I'm not letting you take all the credit for this, Hallaster!" Brighton shouts as he swings.

[Cont.]

>>6248845

With you empowered by Excalibur and Brighton empowered by Gryffindor, you two make him take a step back. You focus on not giving him the chance to use the gun on his left hand, Brighton on not letting him use the wand on his right, you make him sweat. Another step backwards, then another.

And then… Excalibur hesitates, the most miniscule of grins forcing itself on the Dark Lord’s face.

“Brighton, no!” You shout, but it’s too late. He steps forwards for a swing, and something glows on the floor before explodes in noise and heat. He flies backwards and your eyes can’t help but track as his flaming form traces an arc through the room, and when the part of your brain that screams “SURVIVE!” forces you to look back at Potter, he’s already on top of you, blasting spell after spell, and now you are the one forced to take one step back, then another as a onslaught of curses comes your way.

Through Excalibur, through your army’s charms and hexes, Potter’s power falls upon you like hammer on anvil, sheer raw magic blasting against you again and again. Finally, an Expelliarmus comes at you moving faster than any spell you’ve ever seen and hits you squarely in the chest. Your arms fly open, your right hand not letting go of Excalibur, your chest exposed.

And, whether it is because fate has a sense of irony or simply because the Disarming Charm leaves your wand in exactly the right place to start its movement, he shouts:

“Sectumsempra!”

He aims it at your heart, but Excalibur, who had been resisting the impulse Expelliarmus had put into it, suddenly accepts the movement, bringing you along, trying desperately to pull you to safety.

It’s not enough, and the curse hits you squarely on the shoulder. There is a loud splash of blood, you hear Arty screaming, and feel as your left scarred arm is cut clean off your shoulder and you fall to the floor.

The world grows blurry as your brain loses focus, Potter towering over you much like one day his daughter’s body had. Back at Last Light, you had been sure you’d die. You almost did. But here, surrounded by your friends and army, you know there will be someone to save you, there is not a moment of doubt in your mind. You trust them with your life, you trust them to be there when you fall.

And when two blurs of spell-slinging fury blast Potter sideways, you’re only surprised that Linda’s rage is pushing her body to the point she’s managing to keep up with Arty.

--

“You’ll be fine, commander,” you hear someone say as you get dragged away from the fight. A potion bottle is put against your lips. “We got you.”

“Not Wiggenweld,” you sputter, weakly. “It’s-”

“Yeah, we know,” says the familiar voice. “But casting Vulnera Sanentur takes a while and Potter is still actively trying to kill you. Here, I think this is safe, put his legs up.”


[Cont.]

>>6248847

You feel yourself stop and something being pressed against your shoulder. The pain is like fire, but there is little of your brain working for you to react.

“What’s that?” Someone asks as someone else murmurs the healing spell over and over.

“Hemostatic gauze, so he doesn’t bleed to death. A little muggle magic so we don’t have to improvise a cauterization like bloody cavemen. Anyone have a Bloodfill Potion? I used mine on- ah, thanks! Feed it to him, I need to hold this thing.”

Another potion gets put down your throat, and your brain begins to work properly again as magic refills the blood you lost. This also makes you remember what pain feels like and bring you back from the edge shock.

You see Elend holding something on your shoulder.

“Oh good, you look like you’re not going to die anymore.”

“Is- am I- still bleeding?” You stutter.

“If I’m using this thing right, only for about another thirty seconds.”

“Need to- go back.”

“The gryffindor is telling you you’re being an idiot. You’re not fighting Potter with a missing arm.”

You let go of Excalibur and reach into your pouch. Takes you three tries to signal what you want, but you pull out a potion.

“Uh, commander, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“You- the potions- specialist?”

“Alright, message received, but remember that a Gryffindor just told you were being a bit too foolhardy. The gauze is set and the spell did, uh, some work. You won’t immediately die.”

You uncork the bottle and drink a single gulp of the Ageing Potion. Your body, and by extension the wound in your arm, ages by a few weeks, the fresh wounds turn into scars. The effect is temporary and will come to collect its cost once it wears off, but for the moment it clears your head and stabilizes you. You can’t age more than a couple weeks without risking a magical crash afterwards, nor would you risk doing what you’d done during Arty’s battle an eternity ago, but it is enough to force yourself up to your feet, leaning on Excalibur for support.

“Never really liked that arm anyway,” you spit out, trying to force your mind into place, trying to store away the trauma in that same place you stored all other horrors. It is more difficult to do without Helga there, but you make yourself not to think of it nonetheless. Like a mask, like an occlumency barrier, you hold on to the image of someone to whom the loss of an arm would be a mere inconvenience.

“I’ll, uh, transfigure it and store it away.” Elend says. “Maybe they can reattach it later? I mean, muggles could.”

“You’re saying I wouldn’t look good with a metallic arm, Buckling?”

“I mean, you’re short, blond, and you did search for the philosopher’s stone, so I’d say there’s a track record for it being badass. We could get one of Hogwarts' armors to follow you around.”

[Cont.]

>>6248849

You shake your head, and the desperate humor of the situation helps bring you back. You look up, peeking out from behind the Mirror where Elend and others had brought you, surveying the room. Somewhere to your right a singed and still hurt Brighton is also telling Helga and the Notts that he’s going back into the fight whether they want him to or not. In front of you, Potter is still fighting, still slashing away at your army. At least now, everyone who was in the briefcase is out and fighting. Arty and Linda are keeping him at bay, but you know that Linda won’t last, that Rowena is pushing her body to the limit, and that she will break if she keeps it up.

You’re not allowing it to happen.

“Right. Elend, I’m going to need your help.”

> Regroup with Brighton for a single unified point of attack. Would be risky as both you and Brighton are hurt, but would be a controlled way to get Arty and Linda out Potter’s aim.
> Time a volley of Erumpent Potions in Potter’s direction, causing chaos for them to back away. Arty and Linda might get caught in the blasts, but it will be less bad than getting hit by Potter.
> Call for a charge against Potter. The toll will be high, but the chance of getting to him will be the greatest so far. And with the commotion, he won’t have time to focus on Linda and Arty
> Other (write in)

>>6248850
>> Regroup with Brighton for a single unified point of attack. Would be risky as both you and Brighton are hurt, but would be a controlled way to get Arty and Linda out Potter’s aim.
that could have gone worse, lucky it didnt

>>6248850
> Regroup with Brighton for a single unified point of attack.

Once we regroup, we can try the same thing again; it's bound to work the second time!
Other than that; if our intent is solely to distract Potter, maybe going for the Ginferius would be a good option? Don't know if Potter cares about it, though.

>>6248855
doubt Potter gives a shit about her physical body anymore since he turned it into a zombie

>>6248850
> Call for a charge against Potter. The toll will be high, but the chance of getting to him will be the greatest so far. And with the commotion, he won’t have time to focus on Linda and Arty
To be frank, some of these kids are going to die either way, due to Potter's oping gambit of making us all inhale transfigured metal. Better they die in battle.

>>6248870
we still don't know if he actually did it

>>6248872
But e have no reason to think he didn't, or wouldn't. He's killed children in this battle.

>>6248850
>> Call for a charge against Potter. The toll will be high, but the chance of getting to him will be the greatest so far. And with the commotion, he won’t have time to focus on Linda and Arty
just, somebody land a hit on this fucking guy! doesnt have to be us! just somebody please petrificus his ass and end him already!

>>6248850
> Call for a charge against Potter. The toll will be high, but the chance of getting to him will be the greatest so far. And with the commotion, he won’t have time to focus on Linda and Arty
All we need is one to really land and down him, and then Elliot needs to go impale his heart with Excalibur in addition to decapitation

Rolled 25 (1d100)

>>6248850
> Regroup with Brighton for a single unified point of attack. Would be risky as both you and Brighton are hurt, but would be a controlled way to get Arty and Linda out Potter’s aim.
Balls to the wall. We aren't spending other people's lives in exchange for our own. Not really a slytherin thing to do, but eh, things are topsy turvy these days.

Rolling for luck!

>>6248961
>We aren't spending other people's lives in exchange for our own. Not really a slytherin thing to do
>Not really a slytherin thing to do
thats literally the most Slytherin option there is

>>6248855
Changing my vote to:
> Call for a charge
Our lack of an arm will massively harm our chances, even with Brighton. While the death toll will be higher, anyone lost would probably die due to the poisoned air anyway.
At least this way, we'll have a much higher base chance of victory, and if we're lucky we might get away scot-free if we roll 3 wins.

>>6248962
I think anon meant that NOT expending their lives was unusually kind for a Slytherin... But as Our boy likes to say, hes' got a lot of Hufflepuff in him. I mean, he's both literally had THE Hufflepuff inside him, and has now been inside of a Huffelpuff repeatedly, kek

>>6248870
>>6248882
>>6248893
>>6249079
> Call for a charge

A charge it is.

> Roll d100+140 (35 from your Army Rolls, +60 from your other generals and artifacts, +45 from numeric superiority). Beat 2 out of 3

Rolled 53 + 140 (1d100 + 140)

>>6249778
PLEASE! WE NEED BIG ROLLS HERE!!
IM BEGGING YOU RNGESUS!

>>6249783

Rolled 73 + 140 (1d100 + 140)

>>6249778
rollan

Rolled 75 + 140 (1d100 + 140)

>>6249778

>>6249783
looks like your prayers to the dice gods were heard

we live to see another day fellas

>>6249783
>193
>>6249786
>213
>>6249790
>275
alright, not perfect but not bad either, could definitely have been worse.
as long as Potter wont pull some bullshit out of his ass, we should be good

>>6249807
>275
damn, my fingers got mixed up there, thats a 215

>>6249807
don't think he has any tricks left, pretty sure his magical gun was the last one

Rolled 18, 81, 35, 86 = 220 (4d100)

>>6249783
>>6249786
>>6249790

Well done, and, in unrelated news, what a fucking week. Can Potter survive this?

>>6250709

I was even going to give him a +110 on this one, but even then, it wouldn't have been enough. Writing.

>>6250709
>>6250711

>>6250709
Now we just need to hope enough people will have died, so that we can ignore the whole "not enough antidotes for everyone" thing.

>>6250757
i still think it was a bluff considering the fact he'd be vey much aware of the risk of his potion being lost during the fight

>>6250709
Nice. Fuck you Potter.

>>6250761
Hopefully.

>>6250757
if not, people will still be shaken up by the revelation that we were prepared to let their friends die.

>>6250769
they've probably already figured that out, question is how they'll handle it

another question is why he'd just have a bunch of steel with him

>>6250776
he killed his entire family...he is fucking crazy! im surprised he doesnt have C4 on him

>>6250776
To transmute and poison kids with. This Potter fellow is a schemer, who plans well in advance.

I would like you all to rest assured that (with the exception of the one where you explicitly put yourself in danger) losing any roll here would have killed off named characters.

--

You and Elend step away from the Mirror, moving to positions closer to Potter and to the front of the army. He stays a bit behind, where the shouting of your army casting spells will block anyone from hearing what he’s casting.

Once you’re close enough to the frontline, you turn to him and nod.

He points his wand towards the Dark Lord and, as if Harry Potter was one of the great wounds in the world, he shouts in a lost scream “Expecto Patronum!”

A tiny silver hummingbird shoots out from his wand, advancing towards Potter at full speed, a blur in the middle of the chaos. A blur which Potter’s barriers were not created to stop, a glowing blur which, at a glance, was an unknown spell which crossed through all his wards. Potter’s eyes go wide as he’s forced to bring his movement to a halt, break off his barrage of spells and shields to physically jump away from the glimmering bolt, stumbling off balance.

It’s the moment you need.

“Everyone, charge!” You shout, raising up Excalibur with your remaining arm and dashing forward towards Potter. The advantage he’d gained by striking you and Brighton down is gone, as a great mass of students race towards him, some pulling out goblin-made weapons from their robes, shouting in joy and fury at the sight of their one-armed commander.

Your blade is second to arrive, losing only to Arty’s spell and an instant before Linda’s. Potter scampers backwards, surprise wide in his eyes. He tries raising his gun, but a silver halberd strikes against it before he can aim it. He pulls up his wand, but a silver lance flies directly through where his hand would have been. Blades made of the same material as the humble sickle, though far deadlier than any wizard coin, fall upon him.

It is not easy to have this many blades attacking at once, but thrusts are more effective here than wild slashes. One grazes him in the arm, two others in the leg, a few in the torso. The robes Harry Potter is wearing turn red with blood, and the look in his eyes turn from surprise and hate… to fear.

And a cornered beast is dangerous indeed.

“MULFULGUR!” He shouts, and there is lighting once more. More powerful than the last time, and more out of control. The electricity arches in bolts thick as trees, through the goblin-made weapons, which try to resist, but are not powerful enough against the power of a Dark Lord who no longer has any shred of restraint. Instead, they turn into lightning rods, attracting the lighting and channeling it through their bearer.

[Cont.]

>>6251112

Your army screams louder than ever.

But not you.

For the Sword of the Once and Future king does not fall for the same trick twice, and Excalibur, though in your holster at the time, had felt its bite. It is the only weapon among all others from which the lightning does not come out through the hand that holds it, but through its tip, like a great electrical coil, protecting you.

You raise your sword and swing it downwards.

The lighting stops and your army falls to the floor, gasping for air.

Harry Potter sways, grasping at the wound at his chest. His hands are no longer strong enough to hold his pistol, and it clatters to the floor as he leans against what was once a stone workbench in the center of the room.

“It’s over, professor,” you say. “We’re done.”

“You- you vile… I should- have killed you- when I had the chance.” He gasps for air, blood pouring. “I should have- saved the world- when I had the chance.”

“Maybe. But it’s too late now. Please, professor. Drop your wand. Surrender. We can heal you.”

And then… he laughs. It is a hoarse laugh. Pained. There are tears in his eyes streaming down his face.

“The world is dead. Killed by my kindness. My loved ones will die and I won’t be able to save them. All because of my mercy. No. No, I cannot change the past. It is too late.” For a moment, there is regret on his face. For a moment, you dare hope there is something of your old professor there. Then, his eyes become piercing cold. “But perhaps… not too late to give the future a chance. Avada Kedavra!”

His movements are slow, too slow from the bloodloss, and you see them coming easily. It is simple enough to get out of the way.

And Harry Potter’s emerald eyes see the similarly green eyes of a young Gryffindor girl looking back at him. Her hair is red, her arms are strong, her smile is true. It’s a face he does not know, but which he has always loved.

Even in his debilitated state, there should have been enough time for a man of his skill to jump out of the way. He does not.

The Killing Curse hits the Mirror, bounces off it and strikes him directly in the chest.

He falls backwards, arms splayed, and that is the end of Harry James Potter.

--

There is a moment of silence, interrupted only by the pained groans of your army.

Slowly, Arty limps towards you before burying her face on your chest and hugging you.

“You lost your arm again.”

“Yeah,” you nod, letting Excalibur go so you can wrap your remaining arm around her. “Damn thing just can’t seem to stay on.”

It manages to force a weak giggle out of her scorched face.

“You fought beautifully, Arty.”

“I know. You did pretty well too. Now what do we do with… him?”

“I don’t want to leave him here. He… He has his children with him. And his wife. In horcruxes.”

“What?”

You quickly explain what he’d done.

“That’s- that's awful.”

“Potter… didn’t take what happened to Lily well. He wasn’t himself anymore.”

[Cont.]

>>6251114

“‘Didn’t take it well’ is certainly the understatement of the century,” Linda says, collapsing by you on the floor. “It’s like saying Atlantis didn’t take well to being wiped out of Time, or the dinosaurs didn't take well to getting hit by a meteor. Say, do you think he’d mind if we borrowed this?”

“You know how to use a gun?” You ask, raising an eyebrow.

“Remember I told you about a deadbeat father with friends with low morals? Unless Elend takes private classes, I have at least a couple hours of shooting more than anyone here.”

“Take it. Probably want to see if he has more bullets in his pouch.” You turn in another direction. “Brighton!”

“What?” He asks from where he’s lying down, being fed a Wiggenweld by Helga. It isn’t an uncommon sight, as the least injured are doing what they can to help the ones most harmed.

“Once everyone is not dying, get everyone to blast the air out of here. This place is safe, so if we can get the air cleared-”

“Got it. Just going to not die myself first.”

“What’s with the air?” Arty asks, looking up at you. You hesitate. “And where’s the rest of the army?”

“They’re still in the briefcase. There’s…” You look around, and there are too many people nearby. “An issue, but don’t worry, they’re safe. I can tell you later.”

“Commander? I have a, uh, remaining headcount.” Elend approaches, looking ragged. “We lost fifteen people. Including you, Linda and Brighton, that’s twenty nine people total. Survivors include everything from burns to lost limbs. I saw the other briefcase is still closed, should I bring everyone-”

“Keep it closed!” You say, quickly. Then in a softer tone. “Keep it closed for now. Also, thank you for the Patronus.”

He nods. “I’ll admit, that’s the first time I’ve seen a patronus being used offensively. Nice thinking, commander.”

“Thanks. Rest a few moments, then go help Brighton with clearing the room.”

Linda is rummaging through Potter’s pouch when something moves in the room. Twenty-nine wands immediately point at it, but you raise your hand for them to stop. A red-haired creature, for to call it a person would be an offense to Ginevra Potter, climbs down from whatever hole it had hidden in.

Slowly, gingerly, it approaches, not you, but Potter’s body. It rubs the back of its hand against his cheek, wiping away a tear. Then it hugs him, clutching him tight, and lets out a howl of pain and sorrow.

“Even in death,” Arty says.

“The last enemy to be defeated.” You let Arty go from your embrace, heading towards Potter and his wife. “I’m sorry you broke before you could achieve your family’s motto. I’m sorry, Professor. I wish I could have helped you. I wish I could have helped Lily. I wish things hadn’t gone this way.”

[Cont.]

>>6251115

You look back at the Mirror, a Mirror you could have sworn you hadn’t left at the exactly right place to bounce off a spell back at Potter, and reach towards it, willing it to come closer. You look at it, and your reflection holds the strange wand of gray wood in his hand, the heritage of Antioch Peverell. And so, it is in your hand.

“I have defeated your old master,” you tell the Elder Wand. “Though he died by a spell of his own, he was defeated by my hand, by those commanded by my voice and by the strike of my sword. Do you yield?”

Something within the Elder Wand acquiesces.

“Good. And you don’t worry,” you say, pulling out your old wand. “You’re not getting replaced. This is just a temporary tool for the job.”

You are unsure if wands can nod, but you swear yours did.

“Be at peace, Ginny. I will bring you back if I can.” You wave the Elder Wand, and the redheaded body grows limp. You reach for Potter's neck and pull out the necklace with three rubies. “I’ll get you three out of there, once we’re done.”

“You think he made one of his own?” Arty asks.

“Unless it is something in his pouch, no. He wouldn’t risk leaving it in this world.” You wave the wand once again, and wife and husband become two gems. You hadn’t meant for them to become two interlocked rings, but that’s who they’d turned out. You place them in your pouch. “So that is done. Now, I just need to be sure my gamble was right.”

You start casting delicate spells, searching for signs of transfiguration.

“There is one other thing,” Linda says, and you give a deep, tired breath, though you don’t stop casting. “We still need to decide what to do with all this.” She points to the Great Machine Potter was working with, pulling the glove and the time-turner from his bag. “This time-turner is wrecked beyond repair for normal use, I can't put it together. But that thing up there? That thing has a lot of magic potential.”

“I agree,” Helga says, approaching. “Rae, do you know what it is? How we could use it?”

Linda, eyes black, picks up some strewn parchments from the floor and some stone tablets that are tossed around, reading. “I’ll have to figure it out as we go along, but… If Potter figured it out, I can do it too. But we’ll have to do it fast.”

“Why?”

“The Lost Moment,” she says, eyes scanning through the writing. “The Atlanteans figured that there is… an extra instant in Time. Something that Shouldn’t Be. A single moment, at the threshold of night and day when magic is… different. More permissive. It is only an instant, but if you have everything ready, if you have everything right, you could use that moment to do something even Ancient Magic couldn’t do, like-”

“Create a True Time Turner,” Helga suggests.

“Or break through the barriers that seal away the Cradle of Magic.” You agree. That is why all the chaos had always happened at sunset. The Lost Moment of Time where things that Couldn’t Be, Were.

[Cont.]

>>6251116

“Precisely. It isn’t all-powerful, and they were just beginning to understand it, but we could use it. We could make something.”

“Any ideas?”

“With what we have here, the time it would take and without risking blowing us up or erasing the timeline… I can think of two things.”

“You haven’t seen it, but around Salazar there is a sea of Unseelie. To make a break through it would cost us much, and there is an endless supply of them to keep attacking us. A lot of people are going to die. But maybe we can craft a protection against them, something that wouldn’t stop them all, but make it difficult for them to get through. It would tighten the flow, make it so we’d have to battle less of them at a time. Keep our army less busy.”

“The second possibility is a weapon against the Beast," she continues. "As it is, Salazar has full control of his Ancient Magic. Coupled with the Beast’s powers, that is one hell of an adversary. I don’t know how to deal with the Beast, but Ancient Magic? That can be handled. Like a magnet that pulls all Ancient Magic towards it, ripping it off walls, objects and people. He’d be just a normal wizard.”

“A normal wizard inhabited by the corrupted spirit of Merlin,” Helga notes.

“Yes, which is still less dangerous than a fully powered Salazar inhabited by the corrupted spirit of Merlin.”

You put down your wand. Around you, inside you and those around you, tiny particles shine. Most people around you have left to either help the injured or Brighton. Only you, Helga, Arty and Linda are listening.

“Oh no,” Linda says, covering her mouth. “Does that mean-”

“It means that Potter wasn’t lying. Could it-” You begin to ask, then hesitate. “Could you use the lost moment to create something to… undo it?”

[Cont.]

>>6251117

“Extract infinitely small particles of air already metabolized and integrated with everyone’s organism? I could, it would be easy, even, compared to the two others but… Elliot, we only have one chance at this. That is what this machine does, it triggers at the right moment to set your magic in stone, it's what allows your creation to come into existence. If we do this, then we can’t do anything else. We have to face that some people will die, if we spend resources saving them-”

“Then it means that some of them can survive. It means that once this battle is done I won’t have to carry the weight of knowing I chose who would live or die.” You grip the Elder Wand. If only you were better at Potions, if only Potter hadn’t been consumed by his grief, if only you had fetched that ingredient from the depths of the castle, if only, if only. The choices you could have made for things to be different haunt you. Now there isn’t enough time. You have twenty nine people with transfigured air inside them. You have fourteen potions. This means you’ll have to choose fifteen of them to die, if you don’t save them now. “I know. But it could help, couldn’t it? We’d have more people to fight, we’d have more soldiers! And if people know what happened, they’d be angry, they wouldn’t fight so well. It… it could be worth it, to save them.”

Even as you say those words, you know they are lies, or at the very least excuses. Because lying about why you’re doing it is easier than admitting you don’t want that blood on your hands.

> Create something to protect you against the Unseelie
> Create something to rip out Salazar’s Ancient Magic
> Create something to save your army
> Other (write in)

QM’s note: As usual, write-ins are accepted. However, given players’ tendency to create an I Win button when presented by such a “create something” choice, this one will be severely vetted if you make something too powerful. You have little time, are working with unknown magic, and improvising along the way, so the reach of your power is limited. Be mindful, be precise and be specific of the intent of your creation.

>>6251119
>Create something to rip out Salazar’s Ancient Magic
much as i want to save our army, Salazar is still our biggest threat, we beat the unseelie before with tactics and using the terrain, we can do it again, but weakening Salazar and stripping him out of ancient magic is a massive opportunity to ignore.

Are we allowed to transfigure the air on our own or is there something preventing us from doing that? Surely Apollo can change it all to xenon gas or something safer by himself, right?

>>6251119
> Create something to rip out Salazar’s Ancient Magic
It's a sad thing, but millions, billions of people are dead. We're here to make sure that number doesn't get any higher than it has to. The price for that might be fourteen lives. People will be mad, but we can hopefully mollify that by explaining the situation to them. Plus... We lost an arm. So, you know. We led from the front on this one.

>>6251156
I think the tricky part is targeting every single little individual bit. Transfiguration normally affects one single, solid object at a time, right? And these bits of metal are, as we just heard, already metabolized.

>>6251159
Bingo. If you had, say, swallowed a massive rock transfigured into a tiny diamond, Apollo could (with difficulty, since he'd basically be doing it blind) find that undigested bit of matter in your stomach and transfigure it into another diamond, then keep that singular piece of undigested matter transfigured until it was eliminated from your system. But it isn't just one, it's billions of singular atoms all over the body, in your bloodstream and cells.

>>6251119
> Create something to rip out Salazar’s Ancient Magic
We need to get to and KILL the final boss

>>6251119
>> Create something to rip out Salazar’s Ancient Magic
>>6251163
what if we tried to make something that wouldn't just take it from him, but also bring it under our control

>>6251119
ok, there's gotta be a clever way to have our cake and eat it too, a Philosopher Stone for this very situation, we just have to think a bit.
Say, could someone with Ancient Magic heal transfiguration sickness? If any of the founders had their full power, could they do it?

>>6251119
Ripping out Salazars magic would be the absolute worst choice.
While he will likely be the strongest threat, we still need to get through the Unseelie to get to him.
Having to deal with a gigantic army of them at full strength while we have low morale is going to be extremely hard, and the loses incurred will negate any benefit from debuffing Salazar.
Also--unless I've missed something--Salazar isn't in control of the beast, nor is the Beast in control of him. They're fighting for control, and if Salazar loses his magic, the Beast will win. That's not exactly a good thing for us.

We should create something that can help in all scenarios. I vote for a healing device that heals people in an area.
This would help against the Unseelie and Salazar, and would cure the transfiguration sickness too.
Even if it doesn't cure the sickness, we'll at least have a good excuse and might be able to get away with getting those fifteen kids killed.
Also, have it specifically only heal people wearing the raiders get-up, as to prevent it helping our enemies.

If not that, maybe creating something like that mythical potion ingredient could help? Then we could make cures, and a bunch of potions to help buff us and kill our enemies.
Perhaps a magic potion creating cauldron that instantly or quickly creates what-ever potion you ask it to? Would be powerful, but limited to what we can carry and what potions exist. Could even use it as an impromptu bomb to thin the Unseelie out after we're done with it.

It's hard to come up with ideas that wont get vetoed. If none of my ideas get greenlit, I vote for:
> Create something to protect you against the Unseelie

>>6251119
Anons, I think the biggest factor we have to think about is whether we can take the hit going through the Unseelie. Unless we deal with them we're going to lose most of our army on the way there.

>Create something to protect you against the Unseelie
Kills off 15 of our troops, in exchange for keeping everyone else safe from the Unseelie. Good, but the loss of 15 troops is tough.

> Create something to rip out Salazar’s Ancient Magic
Kills of 15 of our troops and then we have to fight the Unseelie, but potentially weaker Merlin. I'm unsure about this, we'll be down troops and we'll lose even more (all?) of them getting through to Merlin.

> Create something to save your army
Keeps everyone alive, but we won't have an easy way to fight the unseelie. We'll still lose people but it'll at least be less than using something for Merlin.

I think we either need to figure out a way to fight the Unseelie or use the machine to mitigate them, because we'll have an enormously reduced army otherwise. Or someone can come up with an I WIN button without it being too OP. Hopefully something that'll be useful against both the Unseelie and Merlin. Maybe clones of Potter's gun and ammo since we have them right here?

>>6251296
>We'll still lose people but it'll at least be less than using something for Merlin.
thats IF the dice/HeadQM says so

>>6251296
what we need is something that could do all 3 without being super broken, the question is if something like that even exists
doubt the gun would be that effective since it seems only a few of them have actually used a gun before

HeadQM. Could we create a portal gun?

>>6251296
Another thing to consider is that letting our troops die will also make the rest of our armour weaker. We got a bonus from high morale before, so we'd likely lose it or get a debuff if we let our soldiers die.
I'm also worried that our choice would effect our worthiness in Excaliburs eyes. A good king wouldn't let the people who believe in him die, but at the same time, a good king would make the correct choice, even if it's the hardest.

>>6251454
Look we tried the cool thing first. Dice said no so we lost the scarred arm. Then we did the Slytherin thing of "fuck it everybody rush him" which did work. We thought Potter was bluffing with the air metal, but of course he wasn't because he's evil and edgy and a master planner like some contrived HPMOR faggot. Now we still have the Unseelie hordes to get through AND Salazar/Merlin to stop. Excalibur cannot fault us for all this, we are playing the hands we are dealt and enduring the dice. That's all we can do. And this feels like a good time to remind ourselves that approx. +70% of the planet's population of humans has been killed or eaten or nested in like 2 days. Unless there's a full reversion asspull at the end where Arty or Helga need to kill themselves to make Elliot a literal god so he can unfuck the world or at least erase all Unseelie from the fabric of reality, then this entire finale is hollow. The best we can do is stop Salazar and Merlin then relax until the supplies run out and everybody starves to death.

>>6251461
Us rushing him only worked out so well because of our good rolls, not because it's 'slytherin'. If we failed them, it would've been catastrophic. Throwing away the good inside of us and going full-on 'ends justify the means' feels like it's something that'll have consequences, even if it's not just with Excalibur.
The main issue, however, is that we need to get through the Unseelie before we can even touch Salazar. While taking his magic sounds good, it leaves us at a massive disadvantage in the process of reaching him.
We have the Deathly Hallows and all our generals and most powerful team members, so I don't think we need much help on a 1vX fight. But against an army of vicious monsters that wiped out most of humanity in a few days?
Either we protect ourself from the Unseelie, or we think of something better that the QM doesn't veto. If we don't, we're screwed.

>>6251467
Fine

>>6251119
Changing vote from >>6251163 to
>Create something to protect you against the Unseelie

>>6251119

> Create something to rip out Salazar’s Ancient Magic

I don't see a way of winning without doing something about his Ancient magic unless we got lucky from the killing Curse, especial when down an arm. The strongest normal wizard alive took out fifteen people and injured more. Taking down a full power ArthurZar is folly, even if he likely is not as strong as he would be with a perfect body since we interrupted that some.

A lot of these kids will die but if we rush, we might be able to get them treatment for when the O2 detransfigures.

Prioritize ourselves and companions when handing out potions. Seal all possible means for air to leave on our way out as a precaution.

>>6251315
Hum, I will say not a real rift between two places like a portal gun, but a remote floo network setup, where there'd be a delay and funnel effect between your army and the destination, with everyone needing to line up, take some powder, say the name of the destination and go one by one.

This would allow you to do things like bypass the Unseelie, but you'd have a slow trickle in of soldiers. A slowly increasing bonus if Merlin/Salazar doesn't manage to kill them faster than they come in.

It would be a risk, since the first few people would be completely exposed and without support and since the strongest people who would go first are all named characters who in the case of failure would die a tragic death, I'd say a limited portal sounds ok.

>>6251461
Anon, you are coming across a little salty.

>+70% of the planet's population of humans has been killed or eaten or nested in like 2 days
>this entire finale is hollow. The best we can do is stop Salazar and Merlin then relax until the supplies run out and everybody starves to death.
If 70% of the world's population is dead, that just means the world has, like... The same population it did in 1950. But, you know, with Green Revolution food production technology, and also magic. It sucks ass that this happened, there will be multi-generational consequences, but we can stills have humanity and have 8 billion people again in another 70 years potentially. We can't save the dead, but we can save humanity.

>>6251501
>stills have humanity
still save, rather.

we need either a weapon that can kill the Unseelie effectively since we can't with normal magic, or a way to steal Salazar's Ancient Magic for ourselves

>>6251499
If floo is ok: instead of just walking through one-by-one, couldn't we use the suitcases again and just bring everyone with us that way?
Having people trickle through would be worthless, and since morale will be in the shitter, people might desert and refuse to go through.

>>6251517
The suitcases have the same problem, really, a single point of entry. In this battle against Potter, people were slowly trickling in (which was why your bonus increased between rolls). Except that a suitcase is much easier to yeet into oblivion than whatever magical fireplace a creation like this would make.

>>6251520
Guessing that wouldn't have helped us to know before, since opening the case would fill the air inside with the transfigured metal?
Also, is it safe to assume any ideas you don't respond to are not balanced enough or viable?

>>6251520
I think anon means we could shove people in the suitcase, then hop through the floo network, and release them all? They're still a bottleneck, but not as severe, especially if people are also coming through the floo AND opening the second suitcase simultaneously. Three points of entry for Salazar to cover rather than one, essentially?

>>6251546
I assumed that the Suitcases released everyone instantly, but having three points of entry would be a lot better than just having people single-file walking to into the boss room and getting merked.
Maybe we can stall a bit and have our strongest people come through before the fight starts so the weaker ones have more cover?
Problem is that QM clearly hinted that using the cases would just result in Salazar destroying the case, which would invalidate the strategy.

I don't see this idea working if people are coming through slowly at a set point. Too easy to just make an obstruction or AoE that kills or prevents people from actually helping.

Ok, idea.

We need to get through the Unseelie, but the protection thing would be risky and the floo thing wouldn't work due to a multitude of reasons.
How about a Knight Bus? It's extremely fast and can manuever through tight-spaces, so we could get through the Unseelie that way, and it can fit all our troops at once so we don't have to worry about any potential bottle-necks like with the floo.
If we can push it harder since it's super magic, we could give it better protections or more ramming ability/speed (flight, maybe?) so even if a regular Knight Bus would struggle, ours wouldn't.

We could also run over Salazar if push comes to shove, so it helps there too. If that'd be suicidal, I volunteer as tribute!
Plus, I like how the name fits the whole "Arthurian legends" thing we've got going on.

My only other idea would be to create a magic construct that can help us fight the Unseelie and Salazar, but I'd prefer the bus.

>>6251572
this would be a funny option to pick if the stakes were lower

>>6251574
It's up to the writer if it's funny. If Salazar destroys it after we reach him, then all it'd be is a way to get past the Unseelie while ensuring we keep all our troops and can deploy them quickly.
I can't think of any other way to do that that wouldn't be vetoed.

>>6251572
That sounds utterly hilarious, and I would allow it on that alone. You wouldn't be able to make it fly (nothing can over here), but with the Unseelie being as fast as they are it gives me enough leeway for scenes during the drive and counterplays from Salazar.

It's cool, it's a valid vote.

The magic construct could be done, just takes away from the main focus being Elliot and his allies, so let's just say that semi-conscious constructs (other than things like Excalibur which were made with great care and patience) like that can't work that well with the whole soul-screaming that this place has.

>>6251572
I would support it, but we still need a way to disable his Ancient Magic.

>>6251572
>funny idea
>could actually work
>on brand to something we would do
>HeadQM approves
im changin my vote >>6251130 to this

>>6251587
Regarding the construct idea; I was more worried about potential corruption from Salazar and the fact that the Unseelie can seemingly cut through anything with their claws meaning it might not work well.
If it can be made resistant to the Unseelie, maybe something like a mech that someone can sit inside and control? That'd keep it character focused, though maybe too out-there.

Glad the bus idea got the O.K though. That's my vote now.

>>6251594
Unless we can figure out a canon-supported idea, we can't really have everything.
While we've got lee-way, anything too OP or lore-breaking would likely be vetoed.

Also, while Salazar may be extremely powerful, we're not just fighting him, we're fighting the Beast, too. If the Beast is trying to take over Salazar like how it was with Elliot, then by removing his magic we're just letting him get fully taken over by the Beast, who is a much larger threat.
Since I imagine the same would happen when we kill him (as the Beast would be released if Elliot died originally) we're just going to be skipping a phase by taking that option.
So really, the question is: what would be more difficult and leave us in a worse place? Skipping a boss phase and going through a massive army of (adult) Unseelie with low morale; or skipping the Unseelie and fighting Salazar and then the Beast with low morale.
I place our chances higher with the second option due to the 140~ points we'd get from our full crew, and the added benefit of the Deathly Hallows that now accept us as their master.

>>6251572
Ok i'd rather get the Founders their real fullpowered bodies but this technically serves for every purpose (if we can win fast enough to save our dying soldiers(and they don't die in the process)) so i guess i'll support

>>6251499
What about a portkey? Per Goblet of Fire they can transport a group of people all at once. We have people who've already seen Merlin's location. If we could make multiple then all the better.

>>6251663
If portkeys work by just charming an object and knowing the location, then we'd be able to use the special magic to help against Salazar, too.
The question is if QM is willing to allow it, since the way portkeys work is a bit open ended, and OP things have been retconned before.

>>6251616

Alright. I still think taking away his magic and making him just a normal man is the smart option. However?

>>6251119
>>6251498

Changing too:

>Make a fucking Gundam/Mech construct. Because it is cool. Rule of cool guys.

If it is imbued with this much power> The Fey really only gouged the walls. It can take some hits. And... if we have some dead ones close? Harvest the claw spike thing to aid in its construction. If this claw things can hurt this super magic societies shit, it can hurt them. Make a magic blender to chew them up as they come. Or you know. Giant drill. Picrel.

>>6251628
That's a good idea, too, but >>6251616 won me over.

>>6251119
>>6251572 +1 to this instead of >>6251158

Also? Just to say? The image of Salazar just getting run down by a bus while mid bad- guy speach or something made me laugh out loud. Cackle really.

>>6251119
Changing vote from >>6251495 to backing >>6251572
let's just do the bus idea

>>6251668
Yeah, we shouldn't actually need to use the machine to create a portkey, checking the books and Dumbledore makes one with a simple charm. Given that I think it was Linda we sent to check it out, with Rowena in her head it shouldn't be hard for her to make one. Hell, they can even be set on a time so we can just load some up with bombs or better and soften up Salazar before we all go in.

Man the Potterverse is OP sometimes.

>>6251682
Portkey and apparating are blocked within Atlantis (otherwise you could have just gone from one side of the city to the other, there'd have been no racing around to do stuff).

> Man the Potterverse is OP sometimes.
Only sometimes?

>>6251669
If the bus is a transformer we can have both!
That might be too difficult to make in the short time we have, though.

if we do the bus we should include the drill made from Unseelie claws mentioned in >>6251669

>>6251686
Dang. There goes my main idea. How about something that casts a perma-obliviate charm around it, wiping whoever's beneath it from an observer's memory? Basically an invisibility cloak but it wipes you from memory instead of keeping you actually invisible, an antimemetic cloak as it were.

>>6251695
dude, that sounds more detrimental to us than out enemies

>>6251692

Fuck yeah.

Let's make a maned version of Optimus Prime with two seats so the wifelette literally now can help drive and control the fucker. We are obviously in pretty good synch. We can give it Ex to use as a dagger too.

>>6251711
if we're making an Excaliber-wielding mech, it's only appropriate we give it the appearance of a knight

>>6251809

Sure. It would be funny as shit to literally have Optimus beating the shit out of Sally though after running him over, though.


Also thought of something. If we lost our left arm? We can't correctly wear the wedding band our witchfu made for us now. Hope we pulled it off the missing limb at least.

Also Arty pic since we haven't had someone post it in a bit.

>>6251858
Good thinking, regarding the ring.

You know what I should have done? Waited another month to start this thread so I wasn't trying to find time to write while doing 4+ hours of overtime every day + weekends for the past week because of a fucked timeline. Hopefully the project I'm on should be over-ish this week and I can return to regular updates because Merlin this is taking a toll.

Anyway, enough ranting. These are the votes as far as I counted them, let me know if I got something wrong. Hopefully I can get the update out tomorrow.

>Create something to rip out Salazar’s Ancient Magic
>>6251130
>>6251173

> Create something to protect you against the Unseelie
>>6251218

>Make a fucking Gundam/Mech construct. Because it is cool. Rule of cool guys.
>>6251669

> Make a knightbus
>>6251572
>>6251680
>>6251616

>>6252540
just in case there is an doubts for results in the future (which there shouldnt), i did changed my vote, here >>6251595

>>6252540
Three of those votes are from me lol
Did my own re-count, might still be wrong.

> The Knight Bus

>>6251680
>>6251671
>>6251628
>>6251595
>>6251616

> Create something to rip out Salazar’s Ancient Magic

>>6251173


So, if the gundam/mech idea is ok, then can we have a Knight Bus that can also transform into a mech?
That'd make it a lot more functional against Salazar, and it'd be cool for the Knight Bus to turn into a giant knight.

>>6252540
>doing 4+ hours of overtime every day + weekends
You fucking nigger, I fucking WISH my current job would let me do this! The hospital hates paying too much overtime to permit me to be here to that extent! Goddamnit I want to make BIG money here at this job I love, but the boss and the company says no!

>>6252614

>hospital hates paying too much overtime to permit me to be here to that extent

I feel you. Unless it was a crisis and someone called in, yep no over time allowed at one place I worked unless it was like 30 minutes to help finish up a procedure. At another where I was a supervisor, I started going earlier to do handoff so the previous supervisor could leave on time and got told not to even though the drain on money would equalize and despite being able to pick up extra shifts, as many as you wanted. Got chewed out because I worked like 24 hours straight on Christmas fucking day so people with kids could spend time with them. Could only clock in 3 minutes early or late.

Hospitals are BS and I am happy I am trying to get out of the field, even if I good at what I do and like helping people, even if some of the shit I have seen and had to do was fucked.

>>6252676
working 24 hours straight sounds a bit extreme

>>6252679

I have a record of about 37-ish hours straight between 3 different places, not counting for travel time, given it was in three different cities I had positions in. I have been up for 4 days straight without meds in the past and still worked and did not fuck up. A little longer when I still took ADHD stuff.

I am just built different. Trying not to do that anymore. Made a good amount on some wise investments. Working some extra as a just a PRN now since I have had to replace both an AC and water heater this year but nothing crazy.

And yeah, the 37 hours was Christmas Eve and day a couple of years ago for the same reason. Had to open presents with my mom and bro the next day, since I do have my limits.

>>6252614
>>6252676
We should probably be happy QM doesn't feel the same or work in a place that enables it, or this quest wouldn't exist.

Thanks for waiting, everyone. I believe the stupid amount of overtime is done and I no longer want to bash my head against the wall repeatedly, so we should be able to go back to our normal amount of weekly updates.

--

“We need to get through the Unseelie,” you say. “We can try overwhelming Salazar, but those creatures will eat through our troops. Rowena, have you ever seen the knightbus?”

“I can see it in Linda’s memories,” she nods. “I think I can do something like that. I don’t know if it’ll be fast enough to avoid all the Unseelie, but I’ll do my best. It would be useful to have the Elder Wand for a while.” She nods in the direction of the Great Machine of cogs as you toss her the Wand. “You can’t see it, but the energy up there came from Ancient Magic. I can’t unmold it to use it freely, but the Wand will help reshape it. It’s actually quite a lot of it, I’m not sure where Potter acquired it.”

“From this,” Arty says from where she’d taken over ruffling through Potter’s pouch. She pulls out a cracked wooden cup, singed with fire. “The Goblet of Fire. Turns out he figured out how to break it, after all.” She pulls out another artifact, melted beyond recognition. “Using whatever this was, if I had to guess.”

You gently pick up the cup from her hands.

“My dad is going to have a field day with this.”

“It’s just half of the Holy Grail, Elliot,” Linda says with a smirk. “Nothing important.”

“Yeah.” A hint of a smile dances on your lips, only for reality to crush it down. “If only it was the one from Indiana Jones, maybe it could… maybe it could heal everyone.”

Arty wraps her hands around yours.

“I’m not going to say it wasn’t your fault, because I know you’re going to say something silly like ‘I was the one who gave the order’ or something like that,” she says. “But I am going to say you did the best anyone could have done. I couldn’t have done any better. If you had known, if you had been sure Potter meant it, would you have chosen any differently?”

You shake your head.

“Then that’s what you need to hold on to. That it was the only way forward.” She pulls you down and touches her forehead against yours. “You did what it took. That’s all anyone can ask of you.”

“I know. Just need to convince my brain of that. And before convincing my brain… I’ll need to convince the army. And then choose. Do I let the older and more powerful die because they have already lived more, or do I let the youngest die because they are weaker?”

“Do you want me to make that choice for you?”

“No. We both know the right decision.”

“Yeah. That means the fifth-years are going to die of transfiguration sickness. My classmates. Some of them were part of my army.”

“Arty…” You don’t say you’re sorry. It wouldn’t be right.

[Cont.]

>>6254026

“And if you hadn’t given me a new body, I should have been in the group that is going to die too, because I wouldn’t have been strong enough to make the cut. It would have been the right thing to do.” She breathes deeply. “If I had been in your place, I wouldn’t have made that choice, and I would have lost, because me, Brighton and Linda wouldn’t have been enough. You pulled us through. They’ll hate you for now. Most of all the ones that are going to die-”

“I’ll try to… to transfigure them into gems, maybe once we’re out we can untransfigure them, give them treatment. Maybe we can-”

“Do you really believe that?”

You don’t answer.

“You can lie to them, but not to yourself.”

“No. I can’t brew even half of the potions we’d need to have to treat them. We just don’t have the right ingredients. And even if we did, there’s a reason why that’s not the standard procedure for when aurors get badly wounded in battle. Even when done properly, it’s not reliable.”

“And the healers on the outside will have enough on their hands as it is.”

“I… I know.”

“Good. So now you’re going to go there and lie to them. You’re going to show them that the battle has a cost on everybody. You’re going to show them you lost an arm. And then you’re going to lie to them that the transfiguration is reversible, and that you’ll save them once the battle is done. Because that’s what we need to do to win. Ok?”

You nod.

“Then go.”

You go.

--

“I… wouldn’t have expected that from you,” Linda tells Arty once you’re out of earshot, her eyes clear of the darkness.

“I hated every word. But I wasn’t lying. And he needed to hear that. He needed to hear that from me.”

“You think they’ll believe him?”

“They will. He’s the Boy Who Holds Excalibur. He’s fraying, he really, really is. But he’ll take us to the end.” She speaks with the confidence of someone who has heard what the future holds. “I’m more worried about afterwards, once he gets the chance to unbottle everything.”

“I’m not. You’ll be there to pick him back up.”

Arty hesitates.

“Linda, can… Can I ask you a favor? If things go wrong and I don’t make it… I can trust you to look after him, right?”

“That brat has helped put my brain back together more times than it is proper,” Linda nods. “I’ve got you. But the way I heard, Elliot will tear apart the very stars from the heavens before letting you die.”

She clearly meant it as a joke, but Arty doesn’t take it as one.

“I’ll take care of him,” Linda says when she doesn’t answer. “Not the way you ‘take care’ of him in the middle of the night when you think no one is listening, but-”

That gets Arty to snort a laugh, dispelling some of the gloom.

“Don’t let my brother hear you say that.”

“My mouth is a tomb. But you’ll need to get Elliot another ring, his old one was on the arm he lost.”

[Cont.]

>>6254027

“Damn it! And I need to find a place to get married, too!”

“We passed by some rooms back there that are basically as tall as a cathedral. Could work.”

“Why would anyone want to get married in a cathedral?”

“Muggle tradition. Hum… Ravenclaw needs some time to plan how we’re going to build this knightbus, so we have a few minutes. Come, I think I know how we can find a place.”

--

The air is vented, the other half of the army is brought in, and, in front of everybody, you tell them what happened. You tell them you bet Potter was bluffing, and that you were wrong in that bet. You tell them the truth. Then you lie and tell them how you’re going to transfigure them into diamonds and hold them in that form. How the magic of the Holy Grail (and no one questions it because of course the Boy Who Holds Excalibur has the Holy Grail, it is only natural) allows you to create a form more stable than normal, one that will allow you to bring them back once it is all done and the world is saved.

You don’t need to decide who will live and who will die. Helga makes you a list, and you know she’d done it to take at least this burden off your shoulders. It doesn’t feel right, but you’re grateful.

The anti-transfiguration-sickness potions are passed around to the right people, and you let the ones who didn't receive them enjoy a couple more hours before asking them to come forward. You give sleeping potions to those who ask. Before you can begin, Apollo approaches you, some distance away from the others.

“I don’t know what that is,” he says, plainly. “But it does not make transfigurations more stable.”

“No.” You answer without looking at him. "It does not."

There is a long silence.

“You’ll be out of magic before going through everyone. I’ll help.”

“You don’t need-”

“It’ll help with the troops. Everyone knows I’m good at transfiguration.”

You stay in silence for another several seconds.

“Thank you.” You say, and finally look up at him. He has a serious look on his face.

“We’ll get through this, whatever it takes.”

You nod. “Whatever it takes.”

Neither of you cry when transfiguring the fifth years. On the contrary, you force yourself to smile, because a person who was saving them would smile.

No one questions as you and Apollo, each with one hand touching the broken Goblet of Fire, transfigure fifteen fifth-years.

You know you’re killing them, but you force yourself to believe they’re already dead.

Already dead.

That’s the logic Potter used.

With a logic like that, you could doom the world.

You transfigure four of them before the consequences of using an ageing potion as a healing potion catch up with you and people need to rush to help with your reopening wounds.

“I’ll finish this,” Apollo says, waving you off. “Let him rest.”

[Cont.]

>>6254028

By the time you have been fed several pints of wiggenweld and subjected to enough castings of healing spells, Apollo is done with everyone. You can read no expression on his face.

“Pollo-”

“No. We won't talk about it.”

And that is that.

--

The world feels heavy and dark, so you search for Arty. You were told she was on top of one of the structure’s many towers, but when you reach the top-

“Arty?”

“Over here!” Says the empty room.

“Uh… no, you’re not?”

“Ah,” she says, peeking out of a wedge in space. “In here, come!”

You follow her below the cover of the Cloak of Invisibility, and are surprised to find another Ancient artifact in there with her.

“Uh, Arty, why is the Mirror a curved circle?”

“Linda’s idea. Remember how you told me some muggle telescopes use curved mirrors to make things bigger, and that they don’t work in magic places because magic warps normal mirrors? So she thought, hey, we have the single best magic Mirror in the world and we found the manual on how to change its shape, what if we used that?”

“You transformed the Eye of God into a telescope?” You ask, gloom replaced by disbelief. “And then covered it up with a Cloak supposedly made by Death herself so no one out there would see it reflect sunlight?”

“Uh-huh. And it’s a good telescope, too, but it shows everything upside down, I couldn’t figure out how to fix that. Anyway, I took a peek at Salazar and he’s looking terrible, and then began searching for places for us to marry.”

“Wait, you saw Salazar?”

“Yeah, he’s in the main square trying to break into the Cradle. Not important right now, Elliot!”

“Ah, of course, I don't know what I was thinking, ignoring the whole places-for-us-to-marry thing. Please, do tell.”

“So I was thinking we could have a small celebration on the way to kick Salazar Slytherin’s butt. Just a quick stop, marriage, lunch, followed by the fight for the future of the world.”

“Seems reasonable.”

[Cont.]

>>6254029

“I have three options that look safe and are on the way there,” she says, moving the mirror, and the image it shows is absolutely flawless, though warped since you’re not on its focus. “There is this little garden, filled with strange but beautiful flowers. Green grass, open enough we could even forget we’re inside an ancient deathtrap of a city. I figure we could have a picnic beforehand if we go there.”

“Second is that building right there. Linda said that muggles have a tradition of marrying in cathedrals and, uh, I mean, neither of us believe in what muggles believe, but that’s the thing that looks the most like a cathedral here. It even has those painted glass panes. I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to marry somewhere that looked like that if that’s what you always had in mind because of some movie.”

“Hey, I don’t base all aspects of my personality on old movies! But go on.”

“Third, there’s that roof over there. We could have the entire city below us, golden and platinum towers behind us, shining against the sun on a Lost place. I figured you’d like that too.”

“Wait, why am I picking? How about what you want?”

“Well… I never really- oh boy this is depressing to say- I thought I’d die before marrying, ok?”

“Arty!”

“Look, I was going to die in my thirties, I didn’t expect I’d find the love of my life in a boy who would literally go through Avalon to get me a new body!”

There is a moment of silence, before she grows red.

“You know, you’ll need to get used to saying I’m the love of your life without blushing if we’re going to get married.”

“Well… That just means I have to practice more. Anyways, I didn’t have any fantasies of marriage I wanted to do, but I figured you could have some. So you choose!”

“Couldn’t we do it here? So we don’t need to go somewhere new and potentially dangerous to-”

“I am not marrying in a dusty workshop, Elliot!” She scolds you, hands on her hips. “I might not know where I want to marry, but I certainly know where I don’t want to marry, and I don’t want to marry in a dusty workshop that smells of time being wiped! Now either choose one of them or help me find a better place!”

> Get married in the garden
> Get married in the cathedral
> Get married on the roof
> Other (Write in)

Also, please write in anything you want to do and people you want to talk to tonight or in the next morning before the marriage.

>>6254028
being turned to gems is still saving them, just not in the way they think

>>6254030
>> Get married in the garden

>>6254030
>> Get married on the roof
It looks cool

>>6254030
> Get married on the roof
We need the view of the world before it all ends

>>6254030
>Get married in the cathedral
i feel like this might be the safest option, the other two are too exposed

>>6254030
> Get married in the cathedral

>>6254039
Sparing them agony? I suppose. We Kevorkianed them, essentially.

>>6254030
> Get married in the garden
Because it's not about our taste in movies or our special interest in mythohistory. It's about us and Arty.

>>6254030

> Get married in the garden

I mean all of these have like a 30% chance of tragedy so.... might as well die some where Arty would like; the outdoors. Also mirrors our 1st date, a picnic at the lake. Appropriate.

“Well, if I have to choose… We’ll go with the garden. Reminds me of our picnic at the lake, but missing the lake.”

“Are you sure? You don’t have to pick it because of me.”

“I am,” you say, wrapping your arm around her. Somehow, it doesn't feel woefully strange to operate with only one arm, possibly because of your brief previous experience. “Because the end goal is to be able to live a normal life, without all this nonsense.”

“Elliot Hallaster calling Atlantis nonsense? Who are you and what have you done to my groom?”

“You know what I mean. Do I expect to stop searching for ancient places? No. But I’d rather it be on our terms, instead of on the terms of a deranged piece of darkness.”

“Our terms? I like the sound of that.”

“But before that, a very long vacation.”

“We still have to finish Hogwarts.”

“Hogwarts? That thing we were doing about a million years ago? I mean, the Golden Trio skipped it and one of them ended up becoming Minister.”

“The Golden Trio went back to have an eight year and finish up their studies, as it is custom when there are school-stopping events.”

“Bleahg. You’re no fun.”

“Hufflepuff is the house of Hard Work, Mr. Hallaster.”

“And Slytherin is the house of Finding out Ways of Making Other People do Your Job for You, Ms. Pertinger. What’s your point?”

“Is that why you brought me along? So I could fight while you stand back and watch? Because if so, you're doing a terrible job at it.” She rubs your hand softly. “We need to get you a new ring. And a new arm.”

“That last one will have to wait a bit, I think. From what I understand of magic, you only get three arms in your lifetime, then you stop growing them.”

“Ah, that’s a shame. Maybe you can get Brighton to lend you his, if you’re not against only having the hand without the arm.”

“I’m against being in debt with Brighton, and for body part at that.”

“Why, have you read that story?”

“Wha- wait, you knew about the stories they were writing about me and Brighton?”

“Every single girl in Hogwarts knew about them, Elliot!”

“And you didn’t do anything to stop them?”

“Well, I asked Amalia to stop writing them but-”

“Amalia was writing them!?”

“Only the first few ones!”

“The first few!? How many of them were there!?”

“Well, there was the ‘Quest for Excalibur’ trilogy Amalia wrote, and then the spinoffs a third year wrote, then came the fanfics, but some of them sort of became their own thing and-”

“It is a good thing she isn’t here, otherwise I’d be feeding her to the Unseelie.”

“Well, if you must know, the ones she wrote were very tasteful.”

“I disagree.”

“You haven’t even read them!”

“Good, because otherwise I’d have to gouge my eyes out! Why were you reading them?”

“Well, I wanted to know what people were saying about you.”

“... And?”

[Cont.]

>>6255953

“And it turns out that you have a crown tattooed on your back, depending on the author you are the direct descendant of Merlin, King Arthur, Salazar Slytherin, Godric Gryffindor or Harry Potter with Hermione Granger, or sometimes all of them, but what they all pretty much agree is that you started as what Amalia described as a bottom but Excalibur gave you the confidence you needed to become a top, which she argues is only natural since you’re bigger than Brighton, despite the height difference.”

You let a deep groan that comes directly from your soul.

“Right. I mean, at least that. And where are you in all that?”

“Depends. In most I’m just the person you use to hide the fact you’re dating him, because of a prophecy that said you should, but I remember hearing of at least one where you, me, him and the seasons were all one big thing with Linda sometimes showing up, but that one didn’t get good reviews.”

“There was a review system?”

“Of course there was a review system. ‘Silver Raven, Blue Snake’ got a near perfect score before I gave it a one star for getting which arm you had the scars wrong.”

“And in a few minutes, I have to go back down there knowing half of the army has imagined me shagging Brighton. Fantastic.”

“It was just harmless fun.”

“If Brighton knew half of what you just told me, we would have had to rescue him from Azkaban for beating Hogwart’s female population with a stick until their hands stopped moving.”

“I think that’s why the seasons never told him. Also because they wrote a few.”

“I see.” You narrow your eyes. “Did you ever write any?”

“I… No?”

“Arty!”

“It wasn’t with him! I wrote about you… and… me.”

“Did you write a story about us having sex on top of a dragon, and then used both me and the Scammanders to make that story true?”

“... In my story the dragon was flying.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

You spend a while in silence, with you just shaking your head at her in disbelief. Eventually, the waves of cringe and embarrassment that wash over you pass, and you turn your attention to the Mirror once again. Best to move away from the current topic of conversation before you learn more things you don’t want to know.

“So, you mentioned something about seeing Salazar?”

“Ah, yes. Let me adjust it.” She turns the Mirror until it reveals the central square from afar. The Unseelie run in circles around aa shimmering dome, clawing at the it trying to reach the center, with no success.

“Right. A barrier that strong must be some specific enchantment against the Unseelie, maybe even an extension of the one surrounding the city.”

“That’s what I thought too, so we should be able to cross it if we get through them.”

You wave for her to move the Mirror and she pans it up to reveal-

[Cont.]

>>6255954

“Ah crap.”

“Yeah. I’m not sure where he’s getting them, I could swear there were less of them when I started looking.”

“They’re wounds in the world, Arty. If anyone can conjure Dementors out of thin air, he can.” You massage the bridge of your nose. “Well, if the Beast is in Salazar, that means it isn’t in the Darkness to which they lead, so they shouldn’t be as vicious as the one that nearly killed me. Normal patronuses should be enough.”

“Could make it more difficult to fight, though. People will be busy with patronuses instead of firing at him.”

“I… I may have a solution to that. Maybe.”

“And that is?”

“According to Potter, when he walked to his death in the Forbidden Forest, the ghosts produced by the Resurrection Stone protected him.”

It was her time to shout your name in disbelief. “Elliot! That thing is cursed!”

“It isn’t cursed, it’s just… really good at convincing you that it is ok to die. But I don’t doubt it was able to protect him. It feels like it should, but I can’t explain how I know it.”

“We don’t even know how it really works or what it does.”

“And I don’t intend to use it unless we have to. But we need to keep that option in mind. Now, can you show me Salazar?”

To say Salazar Slytherin is enshrouded in darkness would be to undersell the realness of the blackness which covers him like a cloak. Like dark, solid flames which envelop him, the Beast surrounds him. Like a doll moved by a skillful puppeteer, it waves its wand and crafts a great drill-like hammer, not unlike the designs you’d once seen made to pierce Avalon.

The only thing that is recognizable of a face marred by dark and vile rot are the eyes. The eyes of King Arthur are bloodshot, but not unwilling. There is no doubt in your mind that Salazar and the Beast are working together, but there is also no doubt they are each expecting to destroy the other so they can come out on top.

Excalibur stirs in horror and disgust.

“Easy,” you say, wrapping your hand around its hilt reassuringly. “We’ll get them soon.”

--

“Come on, you bastard!”

“Easy, Rae!” Helga shouts from where she manipulates the energy in the Great Machine along with Rowena and Godric. “Delicately!”

“I am being delicate!”

“No, you are using the Wand like a hammer. It is a scalpel, so learn how to cut!”

“Well, it would help if I was its master!”

“You should have thought about it before not being the one to defeat Potter!”

“Am I needed?” You ask, coming down from the tower with Arty, the Mirror, the Cloak and a new ring.

“Yes, please!” Helga says.

“No, I got this!” Ravenclaw insists.

[Cont.]

>>6255955

“Yes, I can see that. Can I give it a try?” You ask. She stares daggers at you, but passes the wand. “Right, now bear in mind I can’t actually see Ancient Magic or this potential energy you three are manipulating, so you’re going to have to guide me. How long do we have?”

“Thirty minutes to sundown. We’re almost done, it’s just this last part that is giving us trouble.”

“This last part,” Gryffindor in Brighton’s body scoffs, “By which she means the engine of the thing.”

“It is not my fault Linda has never bothered to learn how a car works!”

“Right. So, what do I need to do?”

With Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor guiding your movements, you blindly stumble through the motions, crafting concepts that would sometimes bump into reality and become real before disappearing into nothingness again. It is a strange thing, like trying to cast a spell you didn’t know, or that you had only read about in a book, without a living soul to pass on the knowledge to you, so the process is slow and you just look like a failed maestro waving your stick at a non-existent orchestra. Still, you finish with about ten minutes to spare.

“Are you sure it is done?” Arty asks.

“Yes, it’s good.” Helga nods. “With all three of us here, it was simple enough.”

“And my old body didn’t give you any trouble?”

“It was more about reshaping the energy there than adding to it. It was tiresome, but only because I had to keep waving my arms.”

“So, what now?”

“Now we wait for sunset. We wait for the lost moment and hope the machine does its job.”

Time ticks slowly. Somewhere out of sight, the sun slowly sinks below the horizon. Slowly, as the final minute of the day arrives and starts counting down, two halves of the Great Machine weighing several tonnes each rise up on opposite sides of its focal point where all the power is concentrated, like great hammers which could fix reality into place.

You look at a clock within the machine. It does not have twelve numbers upon it. Instead, there is the sun, shining fully, only a slice or, at where the twelve should be, fully gone.

Five seconds. The hammers reach their apex and lock in place. In the center of Atlantis, a great drill is lifted up.

Four seconds. Great cogs spring and turn, a cacophony of clocks and impossible engines. The great drill begins spinning.

Three seconds. The entire machine stops, deathly silent. The drill accelerates, its surface glowing a bright red.

Two seconds. The silence stretches, feeling like forever. The drill waits.

One second. The locks on the hammers disengage, and they fall. The drill is released.

[Cont.]

>>6255958

There is a green flash in the horizon at the precise moment the hammers crash against each other. At the exact same time, the tip of the drill slams against the surface of the protections which separate the rest of Atlantis from the Cradle of Magic.

A great magical bus appears in front of you.

A crack appears in the protections which have stood for millenia, and the machine starts to dig. Not much, not by any standards, perhaps a millimeter every hour, but with each millimeter the cracks spread and the protections get weaker.

The thing which is, neither and both, Salazar Slytherin and the Beast smiles.

It is only a matter of time, now.

-- Interlude --

Somewhere lost in the middle of an ocean unknown, the Unseelie attack. They seem to be coming down, over and over, on a flat surface of rock standing no more than half a meter over the surface of the water.

It eventually cracks and the Unseelie enter, slaughtering the aurors on the other side. They go down the cave as a swarm, and through the lake, and the through the passage in the middle of the lake, taking their time as they meet the greatest stable protections modern magic can offer.

But they have time. They have all the time in the world.

They make their way down the ladder and into the pit of goblin-forged iron. They do not care for the hundreds of dementors which inhabit it, but they do care for the shiny trinkets they hold, trinkets made of pure magic and soul.

All around the world, all other magical prisons have already fallen, and all places which once contained dementors are cracked open. Once their meal is done the Unseelie leave, and, having had their food stolen, the dementors do like their bretheren across the Earth, following them expecting to find more despair to feed on. They are not disappointed.

--

Auror Nienna Robins is shaking. This is not fair. It’s not fair!

She had finally managed to sell the information that lunatic had given her for a ridiculous amount of money, found a nice little place on a nice beach in Australia, finally managed to put protections to keep all the damn spiders out, and now the world decides to end!

It wasn’t fair!

“Sir, I still don’t understand. She looks like a civilian, are you sure she should be here?”

“Are you suggesting we open the door and throw her to those creatures, major?” Asks back the brigadier to the insolent major.

“Ah, no sir, but… She could stay with the other civilians."

“Well, major, when I wish to know your opinion I shall ask for it. She stays.”

It had been more luck than anything else that had led her to the right place. Then a few well-placed Imperius charms, and she was now in the deepest and most protected part of the secret command center, inside a mountain, in the middle of the desert.

[Cont.]

>>6255960

The displays show the northern and western coasts have been completely destroyed. Australia had been one of the last countries to be attacked, with the creatures coming from the north through Indonesia. The things, whatever they were, were nibbling their way around the great island, like a kid eating the crust of their slice of bread before going for the tasty center, except in this case the tasty center was actually a massive desert.

She had a name for them, one all her instincts screamed at her, but that couldn’t be right. Those creatures were just myth, a telltale to scare children into behaving.

Would they come this way, or would they leave once they were done with the places where 95% of the country's population lived? If they did, how long would it take for them to breach the several tons of steel and rock between them and her?

She didn’t know, so she stayed curled in her corner, watching the numbers which now counted an estimated two and a half billion deaths worldwide.

She twists her wand, enforcing her will.

“Major, we are going radio silent. No more outgoing communications, we don’t want to give the enemy our location.”

“But sir, there are other surviving troops out there searching for us! Without us telling them where to go, they’ll never find us!”

“Major, look at the screen! Over a quarter of the earth’s population was wiped out in a day! Whatever these creatures are, we don’t stand a chance against them! The only thing we can do now is lock down, wait until they starve to death or leave, and then we come out! If they discover where we are, that chance is gone! We might be humanity’s last hope! Now radio silence!”

The major reluctantly obeys.

After all, if life wasn’t going to be fair to Nienna, she wasn’t going to be fair to them.

--

In a small church north of Mersea Island, three families missing their children take shelter in a room at the top of its tower.

The Unseelie slam against it, but its protections hold.

A pale woman in bright clothes holds a ten-year-old girl with equally bright clothes, soothing. She does not know how to calm her.

A pair of dark-skinned adults hold each other, terrified, but feeling ashamed of being grateful their child at least did not have to see these horrors.

Another pair of adults, the two single most stereotypically British of the bunch, hold each other. In their bags, they have a small porcelain goat. In their hearts, all they have is hope. Desperate, desperate hope.

All of them scream when the tower collapses and the room tumbles to the ground. A broken arm, a concussion, scrapes and cuts take their minds off the horror for a while as they all help each other, the room still whole and safe.

None of them notice the tiniest crack in one of the windows, slowly growing.

-- Interlude Over --

“Hey, Pollo,” you say, approaching the door of the lab.

“Stop!”

You stop, not moving a muscle.

[Cont.]

>>6255962

“Leave your pouch out there, next to mine.”

You do as told before entering the lab. “What is this place?”

“It’s where they killed Atlantis,” he answers, crouched by some rubble, his breath letting a small cloud against the cold which surrounds the room. The torn and warped machines spread all around the room looked like they once had been clocks, but there little more that is recognizable. He takes a small piece of burnt stone, taps it against his tongue, then spits it out.

“Magic feels dead here.”

“It is. No spellcasting.”

You pull out the Elder Wand and shout “Stupefy!” but nothing happens.

“Oh. This… this is bad.”

“Yes. Things with magic don't stop being magic, but I'd guess they's lose their enchantments slowly. I... didn't want to risk with the diamonds you have in yours.”

“Right… Any idea what they were doing here? What could possibly have caused this?”

He points to a part of the wall with engravings. Most of it is rubble, but one part is clear. Two men, giants, stand by a sunrise or sunset. From the sun, a beam of light shines upwards, and the giants, as if the beam of light was a rift, have their hands on either side of it, pulling it apart.

It takes a while for you to understand.

“Oh no. They… A single lost moment wasn’t enough for them, was it? They wanted more time with it. They wanted to stretch it out, make it longer than an instant.”

“Tried to make an instant last forever. Got erased from time. Sounds fair to me.”

“Merlin… All this, and they still wanted more.”

“Wouldn’t you?” he asks. You hesitate to answer, but eventually relent.

“Yes. Yes, I would. Just like they would. We‘re doomed, aren’t we?”

“Now while we have you.”

“I’m only one person.”

“So was Merlin,” he says, picking another piece of rubble and examining it. “He got us through a few thousand years. You can do the same.”

“A bit over my paygrade, I’m afraid.”

“No. You saw his memories, his warnings,” he insists, nodding firmly. “You can.”

You don’t know what to say to that.

“I don’t suppose you have any idea of how we could move this area of non-magic and put it directly on top of Salazar, do you?”

“Are you sure you want to try?”

“... No. That would be silly to the extreme. Forget I asked.”

There is another moment of silence.

“When are you two getting married?”

“Ah, you noticed?”

[Cont.]

>>6255964

“I may be strange,” he says, still fiddling with his rocks. “But I’m not stupid.”

“Tomorrow. We found a place that looks safe and nice.”

“Hum… Riley kissed me.”

“Really? When?”

“A couple of minutes ago. I told her she shouldn’t have.”

“Not the best move.”

“No, probably not. But I’m no good for a future. I can’t give her what you and Arty have.”

“She doesn’t want what me and Arty have. She wants you. Unless you don’t want her.”

“I did, once. But things change.” He stands up and turns to you. He has a grim look in his eyes. “Things always change.”

“They do. Maybe they’ll change back when this is all over, huh?”

He doesn’t answer. Through his cold exterior, you know Apollo is as emotionally frail as any sixteen year old. It is easy to forget.

“Maybe when this is all over,” he nods. “Maybe. But right now we have to focus on saving my sister.”

“We will. Whatever it takes.”

--

This could very well be your last night in this world. You will spend it with Arty, of course, but there is still time for some last conversations. Who will you talk to? Pick two (and feel free to suggest specific topics):

> Linda
> Helga
> Brighton
> Elend
> Riley
> Talon
> Other (write in)

>>6255953
>then came the fanfics, but some of them sort of became their own thing and-

Kek.

>>6255966
>Linda
>talk about what we will do WHEN we get out of here
>Helga
>thank her for everything she has done for us and what should we do if she doesnt come back (because i have a heavy suspicion that neither of the founders will)

>>6255968
oh you noticed that one too, huh? might be balsy to claim thats a refernce to us, but i´d like to think it is...i still wonder if HeadQM ever had the time to read our stuff

>>6255962
Oh, nice, we saved Taylor's folks too.

Well, maybe.

>>6255978
+1, the OGs. RIP, T-Dawg.

>>6255980
>i still wonder if HeadQM ever had the time to read our stuff
I bet money the answer is yes, you moron

>>6255978
+1

>>6255966
>> Brighton
you are the goat to me dude
> Elend
You are pretty close too. Also, remember Scorpius was supposed to be here? We should have made him a commander or something, his former best friend died but he might as well not exist

>>6255966

>Linda
> Helga

They are our closest companions.

>>6255980

Even if it wasn't, the idea of massive amounts oflewdfics being made shipping us with like everyone is amusing.

Also reminds me, I need to zip all the fic and stick them on a file drop site. Should have plenty of time b4 thread dies though.

Also try and finish a last one when I have more time and energy.

Get you that RaeXRaven on done. I'll finish it eventually and tossitto you in your quest or mine if I can't make it in time here.

>>6255978
+1

>>6255987
>RaeXRaven
oh man, i knew there was something missing! cant wait for it!

>>6255990

It might be a little while since a lot of my writing time is invested in Ilvermorny, but I will see it done.

Also, having Taylor's shade protect and aid us one last time would be kino.

First thread Potter was considering using the stone to consult with Dumble, so apparently not a 100% death sentence.

>>6255991
seems to depend on what the stone is used for, with it just happening to be that what most people used it for is one of the most likely things to drive people insane

You know? One thing I just thought of. I wonder if we could have used the machine to craft Helga's old body which could use Ancient magic as a counter to Salazar. Or would she need time to adjust again, even though the body is hers? Could this thing even create something organic?

Also, I am glad we didn't rip away Sally's Ancient Magic since with out that he couldn't contain the Beast, and it would get out and delete everything from time.

Just thought before I try and work through writer's block.

>>6255966
> Linda
> Helga
We should grab some of those anti-magic stones and use them in slings.

>>6256021
Will here, at the end of the world, the humble primordial rock be the ultimate weapon to kill the ultimate evil?

>>6256021
magic-killing rocks would definitely be a powerful weapon against him, wonder if they'd have any effect on the Unseelie or the crowd of Dementors

>>6256021
The rocks aren't anti-magic, the area where they find themselves is because that's where the Atlanteans fucked up. They just happen to be there.

>>6255980
I'm not the most consistent reader purely because I've been having a rough time with work and whatnot, but I do read them (though I am behind a few updates on both of them). Just avoid namefagging purely because I felt that it could lead to a "the person who wrote the thing that inspired this chose A, we should go with A", which I wouldn't like to see.

>>6255980
It absolutely was

>>6256014
I'd have said no to that. Took Merlin centuries to create Avalon, a massively complicated mess of jerryrigged stolen systems to create a body (it did more stuff too, but a lot of it was just to create the Elixir of Life) so using this to create a new body would be pretty damn inconsistent. Not saying it couldn't be done, but would take years to unravel the mysteries of the body and the soul, not hours.

>>6255978
>>6255983
>>6255985
>>6255987
>>6256021

Looks like Helga and Linda it is.

>>6256544
>but I do read them

Massive compliment. Thank you. As I have said before, please don't ever feel obliged to read my crap. I hope your work stuff looks up; I just got a second PRN and it has been a little annoying. Personally I am lazy, so the name stays on, and I doubt anyone care enough to change their votes to what I choose.


And I really doubted the body idea would work, but just a thought I had while out having a smoke.

It would be cool to see full-power, in her prime Helga again since she came in like a damn Valkyrie vs Nimue.

>>6256544
>Just avoid namefagging purely because I felt that it could lead to a "the person who wrote the thing that inspired this chose A, we should go with A", which I wouldn't like to see.
you know what? fair enough, i didnt even think of that being a possibility, this shows how much detail and things you think through.
im glad and honored that you are actually reading my shit, thank you so much.
i think i speak by me and Ilvermorny when i say that you are amazing and an inspiration, keep it up m8, you are doing great!.

>>6256551

Not to simp, but yeah. Inspiring like 3 ppl to try QMing, all your nifty art Kektus, and way too many pages of lewd/altfics being put to page is pretty good for a first time I assume QM.

Arty was robbed as not being named Queen of /qst/.

>>6256556
dont even remind me of the whole queen and king thing...im still mad at it, she was ROBBED

the one thing im really mad and sad about is that i wanted my quest end at the same time than this one, i wanted to link the ending of mine and "give hints" to HeadQM about what to do to reference it and "link" the timelines, but sadly this is ending faster than i expected and im taking longer than expected to write mine, so thats an impossible task now, best i would be able to do is reference stuff i get from the ending here and work with that in mine

>>6256560

This is still probably my favorite pic you have ever done just because of Elliot, Linda, and Apollo in the background.

And I feel you; Hoffstader's law says it always takes longer to do something than you predict, even taking into account the law.

As long as you enjoy what you are writing, it is all good. I like it pretty well and you have become much better than at the very beginning.

>>6256560
On the bright side, it means after this quest ends, you'll be carrying the torch onwards.

>>6256556
Not first time, I had one quest... oh god, ten fucking years ago, on tg that did ok, but after that it was only TTRPGs for me.

>>6256560
Man, I expected this quest to take, like, two threads at most. Things change and scopes get bigger. You're doing fine.

In an unrelated note, I just discovered that Helga is canonically Welsh, and Rowena is canonically Scottish, which matches with Elliot being from Cardiff and Linda being from (almost) Scotland and Godric being English like Brighton. Only Salazar has no canon nationality.

In unrelated note number 2, just a partial update for today, because I expect the next morning will be a huge chunk of writing by itself depending on whether I manage to squeeze a choice before the party.

--

“Hey,” you say, knocking on the door of the newly minted Knight Bus. It was violently purple with the words “Knight Bus of the Round Table” engraved in the front. It hadn’t been part of Rowena’s design, but you had slipped it in there for your own amusement.

“Hey. I’m still impressed muggles managed to come up with things like these,” Helga says from the driver’s seat, her head barely peeking over the window, her feet dangling away from the pedals. “I assume you checked to see that someone knows how to drive it?”

“Last summer Elend had driving classes with a Formula One driver, which he refused to name but has assured me has won at least two world championships, so I figure he can handle stick-shift.”

“Of course he did. That boy really has an endless pouch of gold, doesn’t he?”

“Riley told me he was an utter snob in his first year, before realizing how little muggle money really mattered when compared to magic. Now? He’s a pretty good friend. I blame it on your school.”

“Well, we did do a good job at it.”

You smile at her.

“This… this might be our last night here.”

“In Atlantis? I certainly hope so. In this world? I’d like to believe not.”

“Still. If things do go poorly, I want to thank you. For everything.”

She climbs out of the driver seat to face you.

“Thank me? Elliot, you gave me another chance at life. You listened to a desperate ghost in your head, and then got her a new body. You have-”

“Miss Hufflepuff, I don’t know the customs of your time, but in the twenty-first century when someone thanks you, you don’t try to out-thank them.”

She shows you her tongue.

“Alright, Mister Boy Who Holds Excalibur. Thank me.”

“I wanted to thank you for helping me. You didn’t have to, not in the ways you did. Not with the army battles. Not with the nightmares after Last Light. Not with Linda or the people I care about. But you did. They say to never meet your heroes, but out of the four I met, three of them were pretty alright.”

“I think you’re forgetting Merlin.”

“He’s been turned into a Horror from Beyond Time, I don’t think that quite counts.”

“So have I, technically. It’s just that I didn’t happen to be the one that took out of control time-turners to the soul.”

[Cont.]

>>6256912

“Nonsense, a horror from beyond time couldn’t be this adorable, though I will admit that bit was mostly my doing.”

“I’m just glad Arty wasn’t born a boy. That body swap would have been awkward.”

“What are you talking about? You were inside me for months!”

“And I could just hide away in my forest whenever you did anything I didn’t want to be a part of. With this body, I need to deal with all the unmentionables, which would be much more awkward to deal with if they were the unmentionables of the opposite sex.”

“I’ll remember to thank Arty for being born a girl.”

“Please do.”

You lean against the bus’ doorframe, looking out to where your army prepares for dinner and sleep.

“What are you going to do, once this is all over?”

“Me? I… I don’t know. Maybe open a restaurant.”

“Helga Hufflepuff is going to open a restaurant?”

“Why not? I’ll have to do something, and I think my days of teaching might be behind me.”

“You did fantastic with the first-years during the duelling classes.”

“Yes, but… Well, I’m in Arty’s body now. That means that if all goes well and you don’t find another Avalon, I have another fifteen years to enjoy.”

“Helga…”

She raises her hand at your objection.

“I know, I know. You don’t like thinking about it. But sometimes we have to face reality, Elliot.”

“Screw reality! With the things the Atlanteans knew, with their magic, we could do so much! So much that we know is safe, without risking destroying the world!”

“Maybe. But that would take years to find out. Maybe we find a way to save me before I die, but maybe not. If we do, it won’t be because of me. I don’t want to use the years I have left chasing a solution that may not exist. Once we’re done saving the world, whatever will be, will be.”

“You can’t just not want to live on!”

“Oh, I do. Just not enough to stop me from living today.” She smiles a smile you’ll never be able to understand. “And you don’t get to tell me I’m wrong until you’re as old as me.”

You want to say something, you want to tell her she needs to fight it, that she needs to help you find a way to allow her to stay alive but… There are no words for that. It is easy to forget there’s an old woman in that fifteen year old girl. An older woman with lost memories and a personality that had a few decades torn by that Darkness Beyond Time, but an older woman nonetheless.

“Don’t start mourning me now, Elliot Hallaster you utter drama queen!”

“I’m not! I’m just… thinking. You know. About what happens after all this. What to do if… if people don’t come back.”

“If you don’t come back or if I don’t come back?”

“Both, I guess? I mean, I still have to tear apart the very stars in heaven after saving the world, so I guess I’ll be fine, but there’s really no prophecy about you.”

“Ha! Fine, Mr. Hallaster. If I don’t come back, I want you to… Hum. Did you know I also come from Wales?”

[Cont.]

>>6256916

“I read about it in some history books, yes, but I don’t think we know for sure where you’re from.”

“Well, I do. I’m from a tiny village called Llanrwst, by the river Conwy,” she says, in perfect Welsh. “But not the city itself. I lived about a kilometer or two upstream. There was a hill, and a house, well, small castle, really. And it looked over the city. I think, if I leave no ghost, I think I’d like to be buried there.”

“Not Hogwarts?” You ask, surprised. She gives a sad smile, watching the students with you.

“Elliot, I am proud of what we built at Hogwarts. I know you and everyone else thinks of me like this Great Woman who did impossible things and created a castle and a legacy, and yes, with no humbleness, I was all that. But before that… I was just normal. Just happened to be born at the right time, with the right powers. And I wish I could tell you how much of my choices I regret, how many of my choices were terrible ones, how many choices history does not remember because I hid them, terrified of what others would think if they knew. I wish I could, but it would take too long.”

“There was great happiness in living as Helga Hufflepuff. I taught so many, learned so much, helped and guided, loved and was loved,” she continues. For a moment, as if taken by an old habit long forgotten as her memories wander, her hands reach out for something you can’t see, and for a brief instant you feel the vastness between your ages and experiences, of everything she had gone through and lost. “But, I think that it is time to let her rest. Whether we come out of this or not, I believe that name will stay in the past. I may take some things from my old self, but, much like Merlin did between his lives, I think it is time I find happiness as someone else.”

You don’t know why, but that is utterly gutwrenching.

“I think… I think that once this is all done, in my next life or in death, I’d quite like to no longer be important.”

You pull her into a tight hug.

“Well, too bad,” you say. “You’ll always be important to me.”

She laughs weakly.

“You are a sap, and that’s coming from me.” And, still wrapped in your arm, “And before you ask, yes, I’ll do your wedding for you.”

--

Takes you a while to recompose yourself and go find Linda. You find her in an inner courtyard in complete darkness, with the Mirror, though she has made, ah, significant changes to its shape. It is now, for example, a several dozen meters wide curved circle. Her “telescope” setup is more complex than Arty’s, with a transfigured secondary mirror floating at the focus to reflect the light towards her, which is then reflected on another mirror close to you, whose image is amplified using the Magnification Charm.

[Cont.]

>>6256919

“Did you know,” she asks as you approach, not looking away from the strangest telescope in the world. “That there is exactly zero air refraction by the atmosphere here? That,” she points up, and you see a sky filled with uncountable stars. Yet they don’t sparkle. Instead, they burn terribly bright and unwavering, the Milky Way a great wash of light overhead. Without the atmosphere to make them twinkle, they look awfully, awfully far away. “Is exactly how the stars look from space.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I thought so too, but I think either there is a massive column of vacuum over Atlantis or the barriers around the city have the exact inverse refraction factor as the atmosphere, and can account for miniscule wind disturbances. Or, and that is the most likely,” she waves her hand dismissively. “It’s just unexplainable magic like half the things in this place. It wasn’t like this yesterday, pretty sure, so I think there are some Atlantean enchantments still waking up.”

“What are you searching for?”

“Taylor’s favorite star. Arcturus.” She taps the mirror and it turns slightly. She checks the notes by her side, before tapping it again. Its curve shifts slightly. At every move, the field of stars reflected on it changes completely. “He said that when he was a kid, he heard that Proxima Centauri was the closest star to Earth, so he looked and looked and found the brightest star he could find, and he thought that had to be it. If it was the brightest, it was the closest.”

“Then he found out that that’s not how stars work, and that Proxima Centauri isn’t even visible from the northern hemisphere, so he figured that the star he found must have been Sirius.” She laughs as she tells the old story. Taylor had told it to both of you many times, and she is repeating the way he told it almost word for word. You let her speak. “Of course, since it was summer, that was also wrong, because Sirius stays firmly under the horizon until winter.”

“So he eventually found out which one it was. And it wasn’t the brightest, or the closest. But it was the one he spent the longest watching. And he loved it. Thirty six light years from earth. It was the first star ever observed during the day using a telescope, and for a long time scientists have debated whether it is a part of a binary system, or if it just has a large planet orbiting it, because it has a really strange wobble.”

“But no one really knows. You’d need to have one hell of a telescope to be sure, to be able to see that far, that well. Your telescope would need to be…” She taps the Mirror one last time. “Perfect.”

She stands up and smiles. Within the amplified view by you is, undeniably, a red star. It is blurry and messy, but it is the single most detailed view a person has ever had of somewhere Out There.

[Cont.]

>>6256920

“He would have loved this,” she says, at peace.

“He would,” you nod, voice once again stuck in your throat. But you’re also smiling. “He certainly would. I think… I think I can see something behind it.”

By the corner of the red star, there is a slight bulge, as if a small white bump existed on the side of the star.

“Look at that. Turns out it wasn’t alone after all. A white dwarf. Not a single telescope on Earth could have done that.”

“You discovered it, that means you get to name it."

"I'll think of a good one, don't you worry."

"Could you make it sharper?” You ask, and she shakes her head.

“If I had more time, if I had space to make it even bigger… I think so. If we were using muggle instruments we’d need a mirror several kilometers wide to get this much detail, but the Mirror is pulling as much weight as me and Rowena could make it. Maybe with time we could make it do even more. Proxima Centauri is ten times closer, I bet we could get some nice pictures of it if we ever take a trip to the southern hemisphere.”

“Want to go there, once this is all done?”

“I think I do. But I have somewhere I want to go first.”

“Where?”

“The Moon. I have a house to build there.”

Your smile widens. You know she isn’t joking. You’d bet she has a plan already.

“You better build a room for me. I’ll crash there whenever Arty tells me to sleep on the sofa.”

“Agreed, but then you have to build one for me and Baubau at whatever next ancient city you find that isn’t flooded with horror-monsters.”

“I can do that. But we’ll probably have to help the rest of the world first.”

“I’m not really a pest-control kind of person, but sure. Then getting to the Moon. Then a vacation. What do you think? Brazil? Further south?”

“Well, it does have nice beaches, but I figure you’ll need the single strongest sunblocking potion available to not look like a lobster after a couple of minutes.”

“You’re not the most tan person either, Elliot.”

“Linda, you got red the time we went to the beach in Cardiff.”

“You know what? Fair.”

>>6256922
Very cute stuff.

this update is only gonna make the future loses hurt even more...

>>6256941
It goes to show how much we love HeadQM's cast.

>>6256922

Very sweet. Liked it. We will find a way for Helga to live a full second life; she earned it.

>gigantic mirror setup to see into space
Cool. Can we turn it into a death ray too?

>>6256984
problem: we need Salazar alive to contain Merlin

>>6257002
Eh, it'll help against the unseelie. Also wouldn't be unhelpful being able to deathstar them if we needed to.

Once you and Linda are satisfied, she begins the slow process of returning the Mirror to its original shape. Having it large is useful for seeing the stars, but it also makes it incredibly slow to move. Once it is back to its original shape, Linda looks up at the star she’d just seen in far more detail than any other human. She raises her wand towards it. She flicks it one, twice, thrice.

“Expecto Patronum!”

A red panda shoots out of her wand and flies away towards the boundless night sky. You two don’t say anything, as nothing needs to be said.

Here, at the end of all things, Linda Cobris has found happiness. She knows, one way or the other, it all ends tomorrow. She has no more worries.

She hugs you and leaves to help set the rest of the army to rest, fetching sleeping potions for those who need it. You spend some more time looking up at the sky, with an ever present and lingering sadness.

Taylor would have loved this. Not only the night sky, but also this adventure, with all its insanities.

You raise the Elder Wand and flick it once, twice, thrice, but it feels wrong before the words even leave your lips. No. Still, you don’t know what you’re doing wrong, like trying to reach for something that is just out of your grasp, your fingers just barely touching it but just ending up pushing it away.

You smile. There is no sadness in it, just amusement that even here, even after everything, there are things about magic you still do not comprehend. You give the stars one last glance, nod at them, and go back in.

Some people had preferred to sleep together in the main area of the workshop, others had found smaller rooms to sleep alone, or with their girlfriends or boyfriends, or with some end-of-the-world fling, so you make a point of quickly brewing some anti-pregnancy potions for anyone who wants it. You, of course, are sharing a room with Arty. You’re halfway there when Brighton stops you.

“Your brother-in-law is a dumbass.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

He nods towards where Winter and Summer are consoling Riley. “She finally kissed him and he told her off.”

“Yeah, he mentioned. He has a lot on his plate right now, like the rest of us. Maybe once this is done he can think about her legs again, but until then… He’s focusing on getting us out. I understand why she’d want something more before facing Salazar, but that’s not him right now.”

“Could have had a fantastic potential last night.”

“How about you, Brighton? Why aren’t you out there having a fantastic potential last night?”

“I’m afraid I aim for things too great, things that would take more than one night to achieve.”

“Really? Come on, now you need to tell me.”

“I don’t need to tell you shit, Hallaster.”

“Brighton, we may honestly die tomorrow. If there’s a time for you to tell the Seasons you’re into them-”

“It is not the Seasons, Hallaster!”

“Then who?”

[Cont.]

>>6258039

He glances at the room filled with students. For a moment, you can see him honestly consider telling you.

“It’s Nunoff,” he says, finally.

“Who’s Nunoff?”

“Nunoff your business. Now go to sleep, we need you ready for tomorrow. I’ll give the Founders some time to talk to each other then do the same.”

You shake your head and start walking towards your bedroom.

“And Hallaster,” he says, half turning in your direction. “Whatever happens tomorrow… Godric wants you to know you did good bringing us all this far.”

You grin. You figure that is as much of a compliment you’re getting from him. “Tell him I said thanks. And you did damn good too. Are you… ok with what happened today? Potter was your godfather, after all.”

“Potter died the day he vanished from the Ministry and attacked you, Hallaster. Today… was just someone else. Someone he’d have despised.” He looks back at the other students. “Easier to think of it that way.”

You nod.

“If you ever need someone to talk to-”

“Then I’ll talk to the ghost in my head, which, I might add,” then, clearly not at you, “Should stop making stupid suggestions about my love life. Night, Hallaster. Tell Pertinger to not keep you awake for too long, and you do the same to her. She’s the best goddamn fighter we have and we need her in good shape.”

“And both of us know it. Goodnight, Brighton.

--

”What did Brighton want?” Arty asks, finishing transfiguring a bed for you.

“Complain that your brother sort-of not-really dumped Riley.”

“He did what!?”

“Riley kissed him and he told her she shouldn’t have.”

She buries her face in her hands, then sighs.

“I’ll shout at him once we get out of here.”

“I thought you didn’t approve of her.”

“It’s not that I didn’t approve, it’s just, that…” She waves her hands as words fail her. “You know?”

“Yeah. Never had a sister to be jealous of, but I think I can imagine the feeling.”

You put down Excalibur and Arty wraps her arms around you.

“We could die tomorrow,” she says.

“We could.”

“Are you scared?”

“Terrified.”

“Me too. But it is so terrifying that… it’s like my brain can’t process it. Like when people are so cold that they stop feeling cold, that they start feeling that they’re too warm instead, you know?”

“What do you think our lives would have been like,” you ask. “If none of this had ever happened?”

“We’d probably be somewhere in England being gloomy about my lifespan,” she says, but there is laughter in her voice.

“What? You’re telling me I wouldn’t have found Avalon without this crisis? You offend me, Miss Pertinger.”

“Oh, I have no doubts you would have, but I figure it would only have happened after both of us got out of Hogwarts. I would never dream of doubting your skills, Mr. Hallaster.”

[Cont.]

>>6258040

“Good. Now, if this was to be our last night in this world, is there anything you’d like to do?”

“Several, but they would all require us casting very powerful silencing charms on these walls. Do you think you can manage that?”

“If I ever say no to that, feel free to shoot me.”

“How about you? Is there anything you’d like to do? I feel like our previous times have been very much about me due to the fact we were first on top of a dragon and second because you had just found out there was a deathly prophecy about me. And I wouldn’t want to be selfish, would I?”

“Well, there is one thing…” You say, as you finish casting the silencing charms. You get close to her, and whisper it in her ear.

She, in response, punches you in the remaining shoulder.

“Elliot!”

“What? You asked.”

“I can’t believe you’d say that!”

“Does that mean that you’re not going to do it, Miss Not-selfish?”

“That has nothing to do with being selfish or not! And… I didn’t say that. I just want you to know that if we do it, it will be under protest!”

The night goes longer than what would be recommended for right before the end of the world, but it ends with you in each other's arms. If there is one thing to be positive about not having an arm, it is that there is none of that awkwardness about where to place it, if it should go under the pillow, or below their neck or just over their head, or just awkwardly squished between you.

You wake up the following day to find Arty looking at you.

“We get married today,” she says.

“We do. You excited?”

“And terrified.”

“About the wedding or about the fight after?”

“Both. Afraid of losing it after getting it.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to take that fear, wrap it into a spell and force it down Salazar’s throat.”

You kiss her.

“That’s my girl.”

It’s difficult to put your clothes back on with only one hand, but Arty helps you. You put the Elder Wand in its holster. You put Excalibur in its scabbard. You take a deep breath.

It is not every day you need to face the reality that this might be your last day on Earth, with a high degree of probability. There is fear and there is terror, but there is also something else. There is a certainty, almost as if you could see the lines of destiny, this thin strand of possibility which leads you away from doom.

[Cont.]

>>6258042

You had once imagined yourself as a great explorer of Old and Lost things. You had imagined yourself as an old and wizened lord. You had even imagined yourself as an evil dark wizard of unmatched cruelty. None of those versions of you had ever held this certainty, none had ever grasped this thin, white-hot line of humanity which holds all dreams and hopes of the world within the vortex of fate, forged by mad men and circumstance, wielding the tools of those who had fought against the End.

There is a pressure of Time, of the likes you’ve only felt once before, when you stood beneath Hogwarts, preparing to cross the door in the room with the ruined paintings at Last Light. Back then, it had been made by Helga’s hand, forcing Destiny through a keyhole. Now… Now it is made by the efforts of all those who came before you. Even Merlin, who now opposed you, had fought to make this a reality.

Either the line of Humanity will continue, or it will end today. With the world on your shoulders and Arty behind you, you open the door and walk to meet your army.

--

The Knight Bus screeches to a halt at the garden. You spread out guards to ensure the place is safe. You set out some people to transfigure some decorations, just a few, to not tire them before the fight. You tell everyone who wants to get married to form a line, because suddenly several newly formed couples had decided to do the same once you had shared today’s agenda with them.

Somewhere in the Mirror, someone had found a record player and a few disks. The assortment isn’t your typical wedding ballad, but you make do. A few Multicorfors spells for black, suit-like wedding robes and ties, and you are ready to-

“Missing a flower,” Elend says, frowning. “Honestly, commander, have you never read up on wizard wedding traditions?”

“Of course not! It isn’t like I was planning on having mine at sixteen until two days ago!”

“Muggles copied a lot from us, but the differences are important! Here,” he says, conjuring a large white rose and putting on your breast pocket. Then he tosses you another. “And one for your best man.”

“How do I look?” Linda asks, shifting in front of a mirror with a set of wedding robes that are similar to yours, but with slightly less embroidery. She is, of course, your best man. “Damn, I look good in a suit.”

“Charming. I bet you could have any lady in here you wanted.”

“I agree.” She pulls out her long dark hair from the back of her robes, still admiring herself. “God, I’d be such a good lesbian, you have no idea.”

“Are you joking? I saw you with the veelas, you’d be a fantastic lesbian. At least until you decided to jump out the window.”

“As long as the next river is deeper, I’ll be fine. Ready?”

Helga stands on a slightly elevated podium, with a wide smile.

[Cont.]

>>6258044

“You know, if you want someone who doesn’t look like the bride to celebrate the wedding, there’s still time to change,” she whispers as you stand by the improvised altar. “We do have two other Founders here.”

“That means either losing my best man or getting married by Brighton, and none of those are anywhere even close to the table.”

“Who do you think will cry first,” Linda asks. “Me, you, Arty or Helga?”

“Apollo.”

“Damn, I think you’re right.”

The record player begins playing and you stand up straighter. You didn’t have a vast amount of options, with the selection of songs Hermione had, for some reason, packed in her provision of Apocalypse Supplies being quite limited, but you manage to find one that is dear to both of you.

The king of rock’n roll starts singing about fools rushing in and Arty comes into view. She is wearing a simple white dress with silver strands. She is the most beautiful woman in the world. For a moment, it is like existence is only you and her and the space between you.

She is smiling.

When Apollo delivers her to you, you almost don’t hear what he says, too lost in her.

“Take care of her, and for a long, long time.”

“Forever,” you say, in almost a whisper.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” says Helga in a slightly singsong voice. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of two faithful souls…”

Helga makes a speech, which you assume has words and phrases, but you don’t listen to it because it happens outside your world. You are lost in Arty’s bright blue eyes, and she is lost in yours.

A piece of Helga’s voice breaks through the spell, but only because it must.

“Do you, Elliot Hallaster, take Artemis Pertinger to be your wife...”

In the front row, Talon and Elend are sobbing. Linda has the rings, and she is doing her best to force the tears back up her tear ducts through sheer willpower as she hands the recently transfigured rings to you.

“To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse,...”

Brighton is just shaking his head in disapproval, but he is smiling.

“For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health...”

Riley is looking at Apollo from afar and pouting.

”To love and to cherish...”

A tear runs down Apollo’s face, who is strangling his tie.

“Until death do you part?”

What do you answer?

> I do
> I do
> I do

>>6258045
>> I do
even if we die after this, we've now accomplished our top 3 goals in life

>>6258045

> I do
> I do
> I do

>Always.

Well, like 8.5 threads of waiting have final come to fruition and it is amazing.

>>6258045
>I do
>I do
>I do
we did it fellas.
we didnt get the dress or spiders in here >>6255980, but maybe we could get an even bigger 2nd wedding in the future, with all the bells and whistles

>>6258045
>I do
>I do
>I do
times a thousand or more

>>6258057
just need to both survive and end the apocalypse first, only a small problem lol

>>6258040
>“It’s Nunoff,” he says, finally.
>“Who’s Nunoff?”
>“Nunoff your business.
Kek, I love Brighton.

>>6258045
> I do
> I do
> I do

>>6258045
>I do

>>6258060
We got this.
We MUST have this. We won't fail.

>>6258045
>I do

I started following this quest from the first thread, life unfortunately hit, had to leave the board around the fourth thread.
I just came back, finally caught up with everything I've missed. I'm so glad to see this quest is still running, love everything you've done with it OP.

>>6258051
It is a bit insane how long this took, but it was one of the most fulfilling arcs I've written.

>>6258560
Thanks anon, and welcome back! Happy to have you with us, here at the end!

--

“I do.”

“Do you, Artemis Pertinger, take Elliot Hallaster to be your husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?”

“I do.”

“Then, by the powers vested in me by the crown of these lands, I see these words as true before magic and country, and declare you bonded for life."

Helga waves her wand over your heads and a shower of silver stars falls upon your liplocked figures. People clap, golden balloons overhead burst, and even some transfigured doves fly out. There is this feeling, this bursting feeling in your chest as you kiss your wife, that makes you want to shout to the world and beyond that Arty is Yours and that you are Hers. That this bond not fate or man can break. A happiness that courses through every fiber of your being, and more. If there is such a thing as a soul, yours is shining as bright as a star.

And, in Artemis Hallaster’s eyes and smile, you see she feels the same way.

She wraps her arms around your neck and you hook your arm under her legs, picking her up and taking her away from the altar, and into a corner which is your own and no one else’s.

--

“Husband, my husband, my husband,” Arty keeps whispering again and again as you kiss, somewhere far away, or maybe in the middle of the garden. You’re not sure. You don’t care. There is a hunger inside you, an insatiable dragon that cannot be stopped.

No one comes between you and the closest house nearby, which you kick open without stopping to think about danger or appearances. You don’t care who is watching you, nothing matters, except the woman you hold.

As you cross the threshold, Excalibur lets itself go from your hips, standing guard at the door, letting none come after you.

Someone does, for decency’s sake, pass by to cast silencing spells around the house you picked, being careful to not look through the windows. There would be, from all those who had been there, jokes about the noises that had come through before the spells had been cast, and comments, and looks and smiles, and debates about exactly which note Arty’s cries had reached before being silenced, but what would not happen, ever again, is the writing of a single story in which you appear and in which the main couple isn’t you and Arty.

[Cont.]

>>6259688

There is a time of no time, in which you and your wife are one. Thoughts and hopes, your very being, bound by that incomprehensible force which is love. More powerful, more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. That which makes life worth living, that which creates and builds, that which mends the world.

As if from a trance, you feel yourself wake from that state, Arty by your side.

You two just smile. You are not two parts of a whole, because there is no such a thing as soulmates. Not two half-empty cups finally filled. Instead, you are more than the sum of your parts, the cup overflowing, more than any one person could ever hope to be.

This feeling, this impossible feeling, which makes it impossible for the happiest man on earth to look upon the Mirror and use it as a normal mirror. Because for you to be this happy, you need to be with someone else.

“I love you,” you say. “And I don’t know words strong enough to tell you how much I do.”

“I know. I think this is one of those things people say are impossible to describe. The sort of thing adults say you’ll only understand when you’re older. That you scoff and say they’re being dumb. Because ‘I love you’ doesn’t quite cover it. But I love you, Elliot. And nothing will ever change that.”

You had heard once of this thought experiment, of someone who spent their entire life in a black and white room. They’d read all the articles, made all the studies, learned about photons and waves and frequencies of the color blue. They knew everything there was to be known about it, from the inside of their black and white room.

You had read about love before, in stories, and you had known it from your parents. But it was only with Arty that you felt like you’d opened the door and looked up.

And now the sky was the most wonderful azure it could ever be.

When you are ready, you leave the house with your wife in tow, no shame or doubt in your mind.

-- Interlude --

The cloud of dementors and Unseelie falls upon Hogwarts. Headmistress Minerva McGonagall watches their defenses with unwavering eyes. She is ready to face death. She knows she will.

But not quite yet.

The defenses still hold, far more than she’d expected them to, but they have begin to weaken. Like many others around the world, she knows her protections will fall before sunset.

That gives her six whole hours alive.

And then the Unseelie pull back. Something in her core tells her they did not find a more appetizing target to focus on.

All the statues and armors, all of Hogwarts animated defenses, turn in place and begin marching inwards.

The enemy had found a way in.

--

[Cont.]

>>6259691

Three point five.

That is the number shown on the screens, an estimation of total deaths. The old auror is not paying attention to them. Instead, she is watching the camera feeds showing the horrors clawing against the steel doors of the bunker she is in. The military men around her are watching it with equal horror.

There is a sense of numbness, as if her brain was wrapping her in a blanket to stop the horror from seeping in.

It is not working.

And, watching the creatures destroy the first of the meter thick steel doors which separated this place from the rest of the world, is when Nienna Robins realizes she is going to die.

She is going to die.

Merlin, she is going to die.

There is a certain freedom that comes with it.

She begins laughing, but the humor doesn’t last long. Instead, she twists her wand. The old brigadier under her spell grabs the handle of the base-wide communication systems.

“Survivors and soldiers, this is a message to all. Any and all wizards and witches, please report to the command center. All security personnel, please allow passage of anyone claiming to be a wizard or a witch.”

This is met with a variety of objections from his subordinates. She commands the brigadier to tell them to shut up.

Three people appear, in muggle clothing, but holding wands. One of them carries a child in her arms. She orders them, and they refuse to obey her. She imperios them instead.

“Brigadier, is this the deepest room in this place?”

“Yes, ma'am."

“Can it be sealed?” She points to the vault-like doors of the command center. “Or are those just for show?”

“They can, the americans helped set it with all the bells and whistles. In the event of an invasion, the command center can be completely isolated, with its own separate air-filtering system and-”

“What is the most stable explosive you have?”

“Ma’am? I believe we have some plastic explosives but-”

“Bring me some, then give orders to bring all survivors and supplies here. Immediately.”

“You heard her, boys!”

“Sir, you can’t be serio-”

“Stupefy. Seal the doors once everyone is in here, these three included, do you understand?”

“What about you, my lady?”

“I’ll be… doing my job. I’ll need your soldier’s help.”

She leaves, commandeering the three other wizards. It is not easy, holding four Imperios at the same time, but she manages. She takes them to the highest level, where, three solid steel barriers away, the Unseelie are digging.

She orders the three of them to begin transfiguring. The soldiers, she orders them to fetch the base’s plans and dig holes in loadbearing columns. They work hard, and the hooting of the unseelie makes them work even faster.

-- Interlude Over --

[Cont.]

>>6259693

“Alright, we’re approaching the Unseelie horde, contact in three minutes,” Elend says through the bus’s intercom system. “Everyone get ready.”

“You think the bus will be able to cross the barrier?”

Linda, right by your side, looks doubtful. “It is the same barrier as outside, and we’re not sure what makes things go through. Might work, might not. That’s why we have the backup system.”

“If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to do some tight driving to get everyone out,” Elend says. “Should we deploy our front bumper already?”

“You won’t be able to see the road once we do. Let’s wait until we’re closer.”

Filling the seats of all floors of the knightbus, your army waits for battle. Sixty seven students in total. You can feel your heart beating in your chest, the tension now filling the air, the future cost, the lives that will be lost running through your head. The terror approaching, ready to tear at the confidence you still maintain. You know that when the reality of the situation forces itself to be known once more, it will hurt. For now, your hand holds the Elder Wand, Excalibur at the ready in its scabbard.

“Are you sure this is going to work, commander?”

“I’m sure of nothing, Elend. You should know that by now. But I don’t expect it to fail.”

The gryffindor shakes his head.

“Whatever happens now, commander… It’s been an honor.”

“The honor was mine, Elend. I couldn’t have asked for better soldiers.”

“Commander,” Talon says, coming down the stairs. “Everyone is ready. Protegos are cast, seatbelts are on, at least five people have thrown up but we took care of it.”

“Good. Spread out everyone who can cast the Patronus equally among the floors.”

“Already done, sir.”

“Good job. Then go back to your seat, we’re meeting the Unseelie soon.”

He goes.

The knightbus speeds through the streets of Atlantis until it breaks into the central area.

“Oh Merlin, commander, you said there was a horde but- fuck!” Elend drives counterclockwise around the uncountable Unseelie trampling around Salazar’s workspace. They’re a chaotic mess of horrors, but there is a definitive clockwise flow to their stampede.

“That’s why we have our front bumper. Roll out window covers!” The windows are shuttered by great metal slabs. You brace yourself against the bus’s structure and pick the intercom connector. “Everyone, get ready. We’re going in!”

“Bumper…” Linda says, willing the artifact tied to the front of the bus to change shape, extending upwards to cover the entire front of the magical automobile. She is, after all, the one with the most experience on changing the shape of the Mirror. “Extended!”

[Cont.]

>>6259696

There is a pull back from the Mirror increasing in size and slowing it down, but not having your driver be immediately impaled by an Unseelie more than makes up for it. Elend takes a sharp turn left, barreling through waves of creatures, the reflective and impenetrable surface slamming against them. The bus shakes and screeches, but holds together, horrors being thrown out of the way by the sheer force of its wheels.

But the Mirror can only protect the front of the bus, and the Unseelie have claws. Most are flung out, but some manage to cling to the sides, tearing through the metal. With a horrible screech followed by hooting, the first one pierces through.

“Stupefy!” You shout, blasting to your left while your wife (your wife!) blasts another to the right with a “Depulso!”

Through the rumbling and cracking of Unseelie being run over, sounds of battle ring throughout the knightbus.

“Flagare!”

“Reducto!”

“Expulso!”

“Commander! We need backup at the top!”

“Going! Arty, keep things stable here!”

“Got it, honey!”

You stop mid staircase.

“Honey?”

“Thought I’d try it out, see how it felt. What did you think?”

“I don’t dislike it but-”

“Commander!”

“Going!”

> Roll a d100+80 (+50 from your Battle Rolls, +30 from the Elder Wand). Bo3, DCs 140, 155, 170

Rolled 80 + 80 (1d100 + 80)

>>6259699
fuck'em up boss

Rolled 42 + 80 (1d100 + 80)

>>6259699
Rolling!

>>6259691
Does this mean they found the way in via Last Light? Fitzgerald's Library? But there's no way they could enter it from the outside because they had it all sealed up, right?

Rolled 72 + 80 (1d100 + 80)

>>6259699

Rolled 43 + 80 (1d100 + 80)

>>6259699
dammit, we already have our 3 rolls, but rolling just in case
>140
>>6259709
>160

>155
>>6259713
>122

170
>>6259715
>152

shit...

>>6259729

Eh. Passing 2 thresholds is better than we have a history of doing in tight spots. Thank Merlin it is Bo3 and not opposed rolls at least.

>>6259713
we made the choice not to tell anyone of its existence, and there's no way our seal would have held against them

>>6259748

The library is a tiny random, unconnected room and is made of the same stuff all of Hogwarts is. I don't think they would have had any luck getting through it more than any other part of the school. My guess is they found the underground entrance to the Repository and are swimming in.

>>6259753
* underwater

>>6259699
>Honey
These two are stupidly cute.

So I was thinking a bit. Potter was truly insane. If he went back in time? He had no reason to Horcrux his family. If it was a straight line back, if his daughter is alive and could have Sally removed? His wife would still be alive too. He would not need to murder his sons. Fuck, even if it was a slightly different timeline? Same difference. He killed them and at least 3 others for nothing, if this was his plan. If he un-Horcruxed them and they met their versions back then, welcome to St. Mungo's. That or he literally kills them again so the Horcrux version never could meet their past selves. That is to say nothing of him meeting himself.

Holy shit. Even if it means a dozen dead kids... he was like a rabid dog at the end. We had to kill him.

Apologies for the delay, but I was travelling and 4chan decided it would be fun to region-block the area’s ip-range, so I couldn’t post. On, then, to the beginning of the final battle.

--

The top floor is a stark wake up call to dismiss the joy of your wedding.

The Unseelie rolling and clinging to the side of the knightbus struggle to hang on, but those who manage to roll over the three story machine clamber to it with claws that can tear metal. Not only that, but the creatures start jumping onto the bus, joining the ones hit, trying to open the top like a magical can of student sardines.

Your soldiers are fighting them off, but the horde is endless.

“Firagranne!” You see a seventh-year cast at his throat before belching fire through a hole in the ceiling. An Unseelie, burning, with great chunks of carbonized flesh, slams its claw through the hole and through the boy’s throat. He’s taken up and out of the knightbus, torn apart by the horde before anyone can do anything about it.

“Kalli-tsu!” You shout, and a purple goo swirls into the hole, sealing it temporarily, before you toss a potion at it. It splashes before solidifying, creating a temporary barrier that will hold for a few seconds. But even before the bottle is out of your hands, the Elder Wand is already in the right place for you to shout, pointing directly at a hole a third of an inch wide, “Bombarda Maxima!”

The flicker of light passes through the tiny gap and hits a creature as it is jumping onto the roof, then explodes violently, sending a dozen of them flying off. A student is hit through the lung from a claw through the wall, another is hooked by the wand arm and almost pulled off before a well-aimed diffindo separates him from the doomed limb. The defense of the knightbus slowly gets chipped away, and so does your army.

You look around, blasting spells, a glance through a hole in the wall telling you’re still too many long seconds away from the barrier.

“Sonorus! EVERYONE, SIT DOWN ON THE SEATS! FEET OFF THE FLOOR!” You shout. You jump atop one of the seats, made of fabric wrapping good old non-conductive wood.

After all, a bus is nothing more nothing less than an enormous metal box.

“MUFULGUR!”

Your voice rings out throughout the knightbus and the great lighting hits the roof, spreading through the entire surface and floors of the machine. The unseelie with free limbs jump away, but the ones with their claws stuck through the metal fry and seize up, your army taking only a moment to look stunned before blasting them off as the bus crosses the horde in a lightshow filled with spark. You yank the wand down, hard, and the Elder Wand breaks the connection, smoking from the tip.

[Cont.]

>>6263557

“ELEND! HOW ARE WE DOING?”

“Goign just fine commander! The engine is on fire, and so are the seats, but holding! Remind me to gift you a tesla coil once we get back!” His voice comes through the intercom system, and you can almost hear his smirk. “Your wife tells me minimum losses on all other floors. Now hold on, we’re trying to go in! Everyone, patronus at the ready!”

Everyone who is able to use the spell summons their patronus and the insides of the bus fill with silver light. Two seconds later, the side of the knightbus slams against the barrier and the unseelie that had once again clung to it are ground into pulp, and when the last one is nothing but mulch… you make it through.

The central area of the main square of the city of Atlantis is a great cracked surface. The great white stones and the grass that once covered it have been destroyed and cast aside, revealing a bumpy and rough surface, curved upwards, like the top of a great sphere. This surface is covered with runes, glowing and pulsing a deep cerulean blue, and through the runes are deep cracks. The source of the cracks is a great drill-like machine in the middle, which spins and sputters, and ever so slowly it deepens the cracks. Above it, a great structure lifts up an enormous metal weight, as if a hammer to slam the drill deeper.

Spread all throughout the area are dementors. Near the drill stands the Creature which is neither Beast Nor Salazar. He watches you with curiosity, then lifts his hand in your direction.

“EVERYBODY, OUT!” You shout, and you hear below as Elend pulls a lever. The sides of the bus swings open, and you jump.

The slowfall potions you had made all of your army take beforehand kicks in mid-air. An instant later, the Mirror crashes against a great pillar that hadn’t been there a moment before, and the bus crashes into the Mirror, and almost as if in slow motion, you watch as the back of the bus collapses into the front, inertia moving it forwards.

Elend Buckling, too busy driving, does not have time to jump out. You can see his still perfectly combed hair, his confident smile, his mouth moving, but you don’t hear his last words before the sudden stop crushes him against the wheel.

--

Somewhere in Hogwarts, while Minerva McGonagall works frantically to move room after room and swap corridor after corridor to put as much Hogwarts as she can between everyone and the Unseelie, Amalia reads tealeaves, desperately trying to find an answer in a future which refuses to yield. Her last reading, before Hannah Longbottom shouts at everyone to follow her away from the dungeons, is just as useless as all the other readings she has done.

Still, for no reason she knows of, this reading makes her cry.

--

[Cont.]

>>6263558

The first of your commanders is dead. That is what you think in the moments it takes for you to fall to the floor.

Sixty one soldiers fall with you, five less than a few minutes ago. Yet Elend’s death feels more personal, no, it was more personal. He was your friend, and a trusted one. You wish there was time to grieve, but Salazar waves his hand again and the pillar moves, hurtling towards you.

“Deprimo!” You shout, and the pillar explodes into a thousand small rocks, before you point at Salazar, “Oppugno!”

The rocks fly off towards him like bullets, he pulls his wand and with a flick transforms them into birds, which fly past him harmlessly before becoming rocks again.

“Elliot!” Arty shouts, and you look to see what Arty is pointing at. It is the dementors surrounding you. They twist, as if in pain, their veils pulling back into themselves, their forms bending, warping revealing dark flesh beneath. In a few moments, the humanoid forms become animalistic, like dark, corrupted versions of the patronus.

They snarl and attack, without the fear they carried, but unimpeded by the silver light.

“Welcome, Little Elliot!” Says the voice of Arthur Pendragon, face black with rot and shadows. “How great of you to join us! Just in time! We’re almost done, almost ready! It will be a pleasure to end you before becoming god!”

And a second voice, one that does not seems to be coming from his mouth, but from the dark flames which cover him, and from the dark animals which surround you.

W e l c o m e B a c k

E l l i o t H a l l a s t e r

T h e M o s t P e r s i s t e n t

O f M y E n e m i e s.

I S h a l l N o t F a i l

T o E n d Y o u P r o p e r l y

T h i s T i m e

Behind you, Brighton is already shouting orders, “They’re focusing on the Patronus casters! Protect them!” while Linda pulls up Potter’s gun, aims and fires. The first one goes wide, the second one hits Salazar in the chest. It explodes into a blast of gore, but the missing flesh is quickly replaced by shadows.

[Cont.]

>>6263560

Salazar reaches into the wound, as if a bottomless hole, and from it he pulls another dementor, an insane, no, a perhaps too sane look on his face. He is the source of the wounds in the world and their controller. Without him, they are nothing, and so he is the most powerful piece on the board. But he is only one, perhaps two, people. He can’t focus his attention everywhere. An attack from multiple directions could get him, but would leave you vulnerable to the dementors.

The newly created creatures of shadows. An army to tear your own. How they will react to your spells is a mystery, but if you don’t take care of them your army will be slaughtered by them as much as it would have been by the Unseelie.

You look at the drill, too great and well made to be stopped by any magic you have. To break it or its hammer is not an option.

What are your orders?

> Focus on the animalistic dementors, bear down Salazar’s attacks while whittling away at his forces.
> Focus on Salazar and the Beast. Your army will suffer with the dementors, but you need to take him down as fast as you can.
> Let your army deal with the dementors, charge Salazar with your closest allies. Takes Salazar’s attention from them, but puts the brunt of it on you.
> Other (Write in)

>>6263558
FFFFFFFUCK YOUUUUU
>>6263561
>> Focus on the animalistic dementors, bear down Salazar’s attacks while whittling away at his forces.
numbers are our biggest

>>6263571
asset*

>>6263561
>Focus on Salazar and the Beast. Your army will suffer with the dementors, but you need to take him down as fast as you can.
if we make him lose control of the dementors, some might attack him instead.
it might be easier to fight against a regular dementor than a commanded one, after that its just a matter of using our patronuses to wrangle them close to him so they attack him instead

>>6263558
We were 10 off from 170, so Elend dies. Wow.

>>6263587
+1

>>6263561
>> Focus on Salazar and the Beast. Your army will suffer with the dementors, but you need to take him down as fast as you can.

>>6263561
>Other
>Accio the mirror, use wingardium leviosa to chuck it between the drill and the hammer
Fuck you Salazar, we don't need to stop you OR your stupid dementors.

>>6263811
+1

>>6263561
Then,
> Let your army deal with the dementors, charge Salazar with your closest allies. Takes Salazar’s attention from them, but puts the brunt of it on you.
for the broader strategy.

Also, RIP Elend. I liked that guy.

>>6263822
Could we use the god powers to undo the whole global disaster + revive people at the cost of Helga's life? Or fuck the prophecy?

>>6263824
would be a nice ending to the saga of hunting down Salazar

>>6263558

Oh you fucker.

>>6263561
>>6263821

Sure. If he breaks through, it is an instant game over.

Might change later if I think more. Probably have Linda do the mirror stuff since she is most experienced with it while keeping him bust so she can pull it off.

I very strongly suspect that the only way to actually harm him is Excalibur.

It just was said these things are unimpeded by Patronuses

*Insert generic excuse for being late because of life and work here*

In case you're wondering, yes, the Mirror idea did decrease the DC of one of the rolls at the end.

--

“Everyone!” You shout, your army around you. “Block the dementors, and anyone that isn’t busy keeping them away, fire everything at him! We take him down and this is over! We take the him down and we can all go home!”

Behind Salazar, the great hammer rises up, up, up, massive chains pulling the great weight upwards, to then release it against the drill. No, it cannot be allowed to strike again. You wave your wand, reaching to your right, and will the Mirror to move. The great chains are let go, but it falls all but two meters before being stopped by Gilgamesh’s creation.

“It is not very polite, Little Elliot, to meddle in other people’s affairs!” Salazar says, reaching towards it. He pulls, but the Mirror stays Fixed In Place, refusing to budge to his will. “Gah! Blasted thing! Fine. We’re almost done, might as well finish it myself!”

You can’t see it, but you can feel as Ancient magic wraps around the drill and forces it downwards.

“Ifullia Lumina!” You shout, aiming at him. A tiny beam of white opens where he was an instant ago, him sliding out of the way, no, space warping three inches to the left so you’d miss.

“‘Till the very end, a stone in my shoe. Little Elliot Hallaster, Potter’s little pet. You know what is the hardest part of having you as a foe? Is that I hate you so much I don’t even know what I’d do to you if I caught you! You’re that infuriating! You and your friends killed me at Last Light, undoing years of work I’d done on Lily!” With his right hand, he forces the drill downwards, with his right, he conjures clouds above the battlefield, and from them a hurricane. “And then, you forced me to live with this thing inside me, forced me to apparate back into the Place With No Place where Atlantis lied, just so it wouldn’t destroy the world that is rightfully mine! So I’ve decided that catching you is too much work, Little Elliot! I have no more use for you, and it is time for you to die! I’m going to kill you now, and I’m going to enjoy it! Avada Kedavra!”

You jump out of the way of the green bolt and fall by one of the creatures of darkness. It bites at you, but Arty, from almost the other side of the battlefield, hits it with a Bombarda before its teeth can pierce your skin. In the distance, some of your army gets pulled up by the winds, struggling to latch back onto the ground.

[Cont.]

>>6266017

“You did that to yourself, Salazar! I never knew the Beast was waiting to strike! You were the one who let it loose!”

“Liar!” He shouts, bringing down lighting, but Excalibur is suddenly there, floating mid-air, channeling the thunder away from you. “You knew! You knew taking him there was the only way to stop him! You knew we’d come back with Atlantis, you always knew! It’s what you always wanted, since the beginning!”

A blast sounds over the battlefield, and it isn’t thunder, but Linda. Helga is right by her, her silver badger tackling dementors, physically keeping them away as Linda lined up another shot. A patronus took a decent amount of magic to cast, but little to mantain, after all.

“He never knew, Salazar!” Helga shouts. “It was your doing! All yours! Your greed, your cunning who sent you there! The same cunning that made me, Rowena and Godric hate you, that made everyone hate you! The same cunning that made your House rot and fall to the likes of scum like Voldemort who wanted nothing more-”

The storm coalesces into a great sphere of ice the size of a house, and Salazar brings it down on top of them with an enraged scream. It crashes with a great boom, the shards of ice filling the area with smoke and vapor.

“No!” You shout, but the sound is drowned by another loud bang, as a bullet bursts out of the mist and hits Slytherin on the shoulder. “Ventus!”

The smoke clears, and standing with a shield above them is Brighton, eyes fully black, Sword of Gryffindor in hand.

“We fought before, Salazar!” He says, furious. “You did not defeat us then, either!”

“Well, then good thing I have reinforcements!” Salazar reaches out to the wound on his shoulder and pulls. Three great dark animal forms, greater than the other ones, pour out from it and lunge towards the three Founders.

And their mad dash through the battlefield, though terrifying, opens a corridor between the other beasts of shadow directly towards Slytherin.

“Everyone!” You shout. “Aim and Fire!”

> Roll 1d100+80 (+50 from your Battle Rolls, +30 from the Elder Wand). Bo3, DC 140
> Roll 1d100+115 (+35 from your Army Rolls, + 80 from your other generals and artifacts). Bo3, DC 190

I’ll count the first three rolls as being for Elliot and the next three being for the army. Let's make it one roll per person, so more people can join in.

Rolled 70 + 80 (1d100 + 80)

>>6266018

Rolled 30 + 80 (1d100 + 80)

>>6266018
FUCK THEM UP!

ELLIOT HALLASTER!

Rolled 45 + 80 (1d100 + 80)

>>6266018

Rolled 82 + 80 (1d100 + 80)

>>6266018
FUCKING DIE!!! (part 1)