Knockturned for The Better (Harry Potter Shopkeeper Quest)

Well I was bored and drinking again so here is some thoughts from our dear Baba since Nikola left.

Baba Yaga laments

Crooked, clawed hands deftly kneaded the dough, the motions as familiar as breathing. Sugar, spice, and a pinch of magic blended seamlessly under her touch. This was the craft so many modern witches and wizards had forsaken. They relied on wands, staves, and incantations—convenient, yes, but soulless. True magic required no tools, only willpower and labor. Those implements might amplify power, but they diluted magic's essence, its very soul.

Sweat traced down her forearm, a single drop slipping into the dough. Her will, her magic, her very essence infused the mixture. These humble confections would carry more than sweetness; they would kindle warmth, bolster confidence, and spark joy in every soul who tasted them. A bite of her creation had the power to make people a little truer to themselves.

As she worked, the wards around her home chimed, announcing yet another intruder. The nerve of them—children, every one of them! This marked the fourth so-called wizard to darken her doorstep since that kind young man had departed. Oh, how she missed him! Polite, respectful, and eager to learn, he was a rarity among the brash youths of today. But she understood. He had chosen to make his way in the world, even if it meant crossing the pond to that nest of fey rabble. The so-called cradle of magic? Hah! A cradle, indeed—full of tantrums and squabbling!

Her musings turned wistful as she shaped the dough with practiced speed. Yes, it was her duty, like all ancient beings tethered to this world, to remain in place. She was a font of wisdom, a provider of sweets, and—when necessary—a stern dispenser of discipline. The young were meant to journey, to change the world, to make mistakes. Yet she couldn't help but wish he might return, if only for a short visit.

The sound of a door-knock, loud and impatient, snapped her from her thoughts. These modern whelps had no respect. She glanced at her dwindling collection of wooden spoons and sighed. How many more would splinter beneath her hand before these upstarts learned their lessons?

Still, her work wasn't done. She slid the last tray of sweets into the oven and gave a resolute nod. Perhaps she'd send some treats to the young man who'd left. Surely, he must have run out of her last batch by now. Let him taste her magic again and remember his dear old Baba.

Snatching her sturdiest wooden spoon from its place, she prepared to face the latest intruder. Another child in need of wisdom—whether they liked it or not.

[Egypt]

Thanks to @Armoury for the beta!

—

"Places like… what?" Trimsy asks, tilting her pale head.

There are… a few, but Egypt is the first that came to mind for a good reason. Already famous for the amount of tombs found on a near monthly basis. They had a rather good thing going from the few Egyptians he had worked with in the past. The government kept down… rowdier undead, and uncovers tombs. Then let curse-breakers risk their own necks to clear it out, they'll happily sell information regarding the locations, as long as they get a ten percent cut in any case. It's a racket, but a good one. Of course, quite a few countries tried to outsource that as much as possible.

After all, Nikola thought. Why risk the lives of your own wizards when one could simply farm out idiots? Only a few nations declared sole ownership over its tombs, and that's mainly because nations like China or Guatemala didn't want people to know what could be… found there. Nikola smiles thinly. "Egypt, easy, safe, simple. I've worked with a few of their wizards in the past, they tend to be… rather lax on some things, but good overall."

Trimsy's face twists in what could only be called a disappointed, childish scowl. The sort of petulant disgust that could generally only be found on children that have been told they have to eat all of their vegetables. "Egypt?" Trimsy looks ready to spit. "I know a few Goblins from Egypt, they're all barmy, they are."

"Any stranger than a Goblin architect?" Nikola asks.

The childish disgust turns to actual annoyance. "I chose a career, not a lifestyle." Then she stomps off through the front door, hands in her pockets, anger on her face.

Nikola watches her stomp off, pleased with himself. He then waits, watching as she goes around the corner… then disappears from view. The smile he has on his face fades away, and he slowly stands up from the counter. He has half a mind to go after her, to take a nice long walk, but he cannot do that.

Not when he has company. With a sigh, Nikola finishes standing up, then taps his staff against the ground. With hardly a sound, a credit to Trimsy's craftsmanship, the door to his shop closes, locks, and then the sign outside folds itself back up against the wall, replacing itself with a slightly shimmering 'Closed' sign. Not that he could see it. Then, silently, he made his way up the stairs to the second floor, his staff tapping loudly against the steps as he went.

He then paused halfway up, still as could be.

… Amateurs.

His staff taps against the stair again, and a female shriek is heard, panicked, and rather annoyingly loud. Nikola walks down to the base of the stairs again, and finds himself staring at a rather… young witch, standing just before his counter. Or rather, floating. The Levioso rune on the floor has activated, trapping her, at least partially. Her eyes met his for a moment, then she made desperate grabbing motions for the wand that had fallen to the floor. But she is a good six feet away from it now.

It isn't anyone that Nikola recognized, but he recognized the clothing at least. The black with faint blue trim. Never the most subtle. But then, that is entirely the point. Nikola's eyes shift to the door to the shop, a man stands in front of it, dressed in the same outfit but with his wand held firmly in his hands. Nikola begins to move, staff raising, but pauses as he sees the wand movement.

… Amateurs. Were they told nothing about him? Truly?

"Avada Kedavra!" a green bolt of light erupts from the man's wand, and Nikola simply stares at it, watching as the magic sails narrowly past a nearby bookcase before slamming into his chest. He stumbles back an inch, but no further. Not removing his gaze from the man. The scent of acrid… bonedust, briefly fills the air, mixing with the scent of the activated runes for a moment before fading away. It is displeasing to Nikola, but not unfamiliar.

The wizard in black blinks in surprise, shock, and a myriad other emotions. Another new scent, urine. He begins to move, begins to try and do something else… and he takes just a mite too long to recover.

Nikola's staff taps against the ground, and the man is launched forward from a repulso charm on the nearby shelf. The man shouts in alarm, said shout turns to pain a moment later as the top of the staff hits him in the stomach as he sails past. The rune there activates and slams him into the ceiling with enough force to crack the wood. The man falls to the ground, and Nikola waves his staff in a wide arc, at once, the door shuts again, the curtains are drawn, and every light in the room dims to nothing. It changes nothing to Nikola's eyes, he sees in the dark just as well as the light. His eyes, such as they were these days, were the only thing left emitting light, dim as it was.

He stares down at the man groaning on the floor, back broken, then he shakes his head. "My apologies, but I shall not be returning to Serbia, and I would have let you leave with a simple warning… but the killing curse, truly?" Nikola lifts the staff over the man, then gently taps it against his side. The man's eyes have time only to widen before he shrivels into himself, folding, compacting, until the only thing that remains is a pink sphere made of chalk, courtesy of the transfiguration rune.

"Stupefy!" the woman shrieks.

Nikola turns his head, watching as the woman points her wand at him from a scant foot away. She has, to her credit, recovered quickly. Freeing herself and retrieving her wand in the short amount of time it took him to dispatch her partner. He watches the white bolt of energy slam into the back of his coat. And do… nothing, courtesy of the shield charms transcribed onto it. The staff swings out, clocking the witch along the side of the head, she stumbles, still managing to hold onto her wand, but that brief moment is all the time he needs.

"Petrificus Totalus." Nikola says quietly, his staff pointed at her stomach.

The witch goes stiff, her hands locking to her sides, her shoes clacking together. Then, like a statue, she falls backwards onto his floor. Nikola sighs, then walks over to her. Her eyes snap to him as he approaches, but it's the only part of her that can move. They widen further, and further, staring into his glowing white eyes as he looms over her. "My apologies once again, you should not have attacked me." Then he taps his staff against her, turning her into the same small chalk ball as the man.

He stares at it for a moment, then places it gently onto his counter. Turning, he then retrieves the 'man', and sets it just beside her. Nikola stares at them both for a moment, then holds his hand over them. "May you find peace wherever you find yourself." Then he slaps his hand down. Chalk bursts over the desk, and he slowly wipes his hand against the wood before pointing his staff at it, a simple cleaning charm on the counter, and a Reparo on the ceiling… and nothing appears to have happened at all.

He then turns his head as Fluffi pokes its head up from where it had been napping on the bookshelf. Looking at him curiously, as if to ask, 'what is all that about'?

Nikola shrugs, smiles, and makes his way up the stairs once more.

—

Day 8 - Shop Closed

—

"Good luck with your firm Trimsy, I should be back within a week."

Trimsy is leaning against his counter, a bag held at her side filled with blueprints roughly the size of the goblin herself. Trimsy grins. "Don't need no luck guv, got all this sorted. Feel free to get killed out there."

"I shall make an endeavor not to, just so that I might have the opportunity to disappoint you." Nikola replies with a smile. Then makes his way outside into the 'fresh' morning air of Knockturn Alley.

From there, it is a quick walk back to the ministry, wand weighing, and a check for contraband before he is allowed to enter the 'International Portkey Office'. It is… a gargantuan space, the second largest portkey office on the planet in fact. It is a wide circular room, with multiple tiers of steps going up, making the whole thing look rather like a roman theater of sorts. At each tier there are small insets where portkeys rested, the one's nearest the front are all the central members of the ICC… and those that had paid the most money. Each portkey designed in a way to represent the country, or at least, showcase how the country wished to be represented. France is a beautiful statue, Germany a gleaming sword, Russia a portrait of the current leader. It goes on and on. The tiers further back are… less ornate, and Nikola's eyes briefly lands upon the rose upon a wooden dais that marked Serbia before he wandered over to Egypt. It, like the rest, isn't guarded, but it is monitored by a wizard nearby doing his best to look disinterested while simultaneously keeping track of a good dozen people at once. Egypt is an eagle resting in a cage, fallen feathers from it littering a box just below it.

Nikola gently picks up a feather.

And then he is gone.

—

Nikola stumbles, his body briefly disoriented, before he straightens up and takes in the space he is now standing in. It is a mosque, or, at the very least it had the immediate appearance of one. The room was square, but gigantic in both width and height. White marble 'painted' with flecks of brown rose up to surround him, broken only by multicolored windows of greens, blues, yellows and purples.

The ceiling rises a good hundred feet, broken up by four domes, each decorated by turquoise blue… stone? Nikola isn't sure, but within it were many golden decorations, each cleaned and shined to reflect the light of the hanging electrics perfectly. Between each dome is… something written in Arabic, though the only one he immediately recognizes is 'Allah'. He takes this all in for a moment longer, then moves his eyes down from the domes, past the chandeliers lighting it all, to the interior itself. It is a wide and open space, with a beautiful and gleaming tiled floor, at any other time he would have assumed it is a mosque. But the people here don't quite fit. Businessmen, children, just about every sort moves about, all heading towards or out of a singular door open at the far end of the room. It's far from the only door, but it is, indeed, the only door hanging open, and a glance through it shows it leading into another, large space that is enclosed but seemingly lit by sunlight.

Then, someone coughs behind him in a rather deliberate fashion, and Nikola turns around. The first thing he sees is a statue, tall and proud, depicting a wizard in a turban pointing towards the sky, a small cane in his hand. The second thing he sees is… Morrigan, that rather pushy woman from just a few days prior, smiling at him, sunglasses over her eyes not particularly dissimilar to his own, surrounded by luggage.

"Following me?" Morrigan asks.

For some odd reason, Nikola had expected that the first person he would be speaking to in Egypt would not be a white woman who thought rather highly of herself. But then, that had proved to be the case in many places in the past. "Not that I'm aware of." Nikola replies, "I'm here for work?"

Morrigan smiles thinly. "Graverobbing?"

"Curse-breaking."

"One in the same." Morrigan replies. Then she pulls the sunglasses off her face, revealing amused green eyes. "First time in Egypt." Morrigan says, it sounds like a question at first, but it most definitely isn't going by the tone.

"And how could you tell?"

"You'll be dead the moment you step outside in that coat. I don't care how many cooling charms you use. And the muggles will notice you immediately as well. If that is a fashion statement darling than I suggest you find a grander hill to die on."

"I wasn't planning on wearing it outside of this building," Nikola replies. And it is the truth, he was far less worried about being attacked in Egypt than he was in England, especially after the… small altercation yesterday.

"Wise, now. I am here to delve into a particularly juicy tomb in the south end of the country." Morrigan then pauses, staring at Nikola for a few moments. "Would you happen to already have a lead?"

Nikola shakes his head. "I was going to go to the government office and see what they had to offer."

Morrigan sticks one of the ends of the sunglasses into her mouth, thinking. "So you aren't averse to tombs then?"

"Not particularly," Nikola replies.

Morrigan smiles. "How about an offer then. I could use a new assistant after my last one ran off. I could show you the ropes of dealing with these rather… obnoxious officials, then we work together in the tomb. It's untouched from what I understand." She smiles a touch wider. "65-35. Since this is my lead after all and I am being very kind in letting you tag along."

Nikola thought about it for a moment, it is an… interesting offer. He didn't actually have any leads, but the government put up posting for tombs that needed to be cleared out regularly. Of course, he didn't know the full process of that either. Morrigan is… offering to help, though he wouldn't be making near as much profit as he could. Given that he still has to give…

"Would we be giving the ten-percent back to the government before, or after the split?"

"After?" Morrigan stares at Nikola like he is a fool. "After? Do you take me for some back alley charlatan? Why would I do it any other way? Lest the rabble…" She smiles. "Run off the moment I make the offer? Before, because I am fair and fair."

Ego aside…

To go in blind.

Or to work with a partner.

But beyond that, she is also his neighbor. Would it just be someone else on the street, he would refuse outright. But the fact that he actually knew where she lived… that did change things a bit. So he thought on it for a moment before answering-

—

[] [Accept her deal]
She'll show Nikola the ropes of this business, and work with him on a particularly juicy find. Though he'll only be getting 35% of the profit.

[] [Refuse]
Nikola can make his own way.