- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
A short chapter to move the plot along, since some people seem to want that!
Next chapter will likely be longer
Next chapter will likely be longer
Fyre, Fyre, Burning Skitter
- Thread starter mp3.1415player
- Start date
-
- Tags
- wizarding world worm crossover
- Location
- Hot Springs
A short chapter to move the plot along, since some people seem to want that!
Next chapter will likely be longer
With flashbacks I hope? I'd hate to have to lynch one of my favorite authors for skimping on details of Taylor and the Goblins *Grins*
Was there anyone who wasn't betting on the goblins getting Fyre Skitter'd?
...why did they attack tough ? I understand goblins are bastards, but why did they aggro so damn hard ?
Sandy River DL
(Verified Destroyer Leader)
- Location
- Lake Michigan
- Pronouns
- Her/She
Taylor mentioning that she'd robbed a bank before? Or maybe it's the Fyre. Or some of her new playthings. Possibly even them noticing she's something eldritch doing a somewhat reasonable impression of a teenage girl.
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Sleepy Rabbit
The "Thanks for the chapter." guy
Thanks for the chapter.
- Location
- united states
Thanks for the Chapter MP3, although it left me rather befuddled.
So, uhh... this is really the whole chapter? I feel like I am missing out on a lot of content & context... Will the next Chapter(s?) have flashback(s?) covering what happened between entering and exiting the Bank of Greedy defective rejects left over from Sauron's armies of darkness?
So, uhh... this is really the whole chapter? I feel like I am missing out on a lot of content & context... Will the next Chapter(s?) have flashback(s?) covering what happened between entering and exiting the Bank of Greedy defective rejects left over from Sauron's armies of darkness?
- Location
- brazil
Well I don't know how to say it Mr. Pie but this chapter?/teaser compared to your previous ones was somehow lackluster even if is only a small peak on how things went.
This si a bit short compared to your usual updates, but thanks for the chapter
@mp3.1415player This is CRUEL and UNUSUAL punishment!!! ;-;
Troll author! Troll author in the thread!
Gringotts has a mechanism to sense if you're a thief—and I mean like in general, so she probably tripped that and they tried to murder her.
Or that's my guess anyway.
Or that's my guess anyway.
I'm gathering that this is because people on SB have been whining about the pacing of the story being slow. So OP was like "alright, lemme hit the gas here, see how you like that."
- Location
- Somewhere under the rainbow
- Pronouns
- He/His
I remember an Omake on Taylor Varga with exactly the same premise.
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
Don't worry, all will be explained
Yup, he gassed us, all right! But I guess he's got a reason to, there.
14b. You're Fyred, part the rest
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
Roughly half an hour earlier...
Deezknutz suspiciously examined the security spell system, leaning forward over his desk to get a good look at the various magical indicators that showed what the Gringotts perimeter magic detectors picked up. Many different subsystems of goblin magic which had been added over the centuries scanned a significant amount of Diagon Alley, the vault levels, the bank itself, and certain parts of the deep catacombs which no goblin had dared set foot in for more than five hundred years. No one even really knew what was down there, aside from it being hideously dangerous, hostile in the extreme if provoked, and best left well alone.
They didn't even dare push the monitoring spellwork too far down just in case that itself constituted sufficient provocation for something to take offense. There were still tales told in whispers about how one entire level of the vaults had vanished completely along with over a hundred goblins the last time someone was unwise enough to think he was talented enough to try such a thing.
As it turned out, he'd been wrong. Horrifically so.
Luckily whatever it was that had risen from the Deep had apparently been satisfied with what it tore loose from the foundations of Gringotts, and it had subsequently returned to an uneasy slumber, leaving broken corpses and ruined magic in its wake as a warning, a warning that was heeded. No one had tried again, and even discussing the idea was grounds for disciplinary measures. Rather enthusiastic ones.
Even so, they monitored the boundary between what was known and what was not with great care, if only to give them warning enough to evacuate should the Deep one day decide to become less Deep.
No one particularly believed they'd warn the wizards, of course. If nothing else the humans might act as enough of a distraction as they died to allow goblins to escape disaster, which was reason enough. The fact that wizard-kind in general was despised by goblins was secondary even if relevant.
The sensor spells, thankfully, weren't showing anything from below. But they were showing something very odd approaching on the surface. Something unclassifiable, although it bore hallmarks of something the system was almost identifying. The differences were sufficient that it didn't quite match anything he, or the magic, had ever seen, which was why he was squinting at the indicators and fiddling with the various runestones as he tried to work out what was going on.
Perhaps some ill-conceived attempt by a wizard to bypass the protections for nefarious reasons? He wouldn't put it past the wand-waving idiots because some of them really didn't learn very fast, and had grandiose ideas of stealing from Gringotts. None had succeeded in over a hundred years, and even then only with the help from a traitor who had gained nothing but a long period of regretting his actions before he was granted the privilege of death. The nearest anyone had come was that fool of a Dark Lord of the wizards who had managed to break in some years ago, but he'd left with nothing to show for his stupidity aside from barely escaping with his life.
Should he return, he'd find them ready for him. The tiny chink in the defenses he'd discovered had been well and truly patched.
Tapping a few runes as he reflected on the fate awaiting any intruders while wearing a nasty grin, Deezknutz kept working, attempting to narrow the readings down to something solid. It was still approaching, whatever it was. The instruments showed many wizards wandering hither and yon like the yokels they were, indications of various spells about their persons coming and going as the system looked for threats. Intent detectors scanned for any signs of malice directed at Gringotts. Forbidden magic was scanned for, disguise spells, transformations, invisibility methods, everything the goblins had encountered in the past was monitored and flagged. Customers of the bank were probed to a level that would doubtless infuriate them if they had the faintest idea of just how few secrets they had.
He could from here see their wands, spells on their person, their belongings, any magic affecting them or cast by them, detect a threatening move almost before it could be made, and call in a response within seconds. Any wand waver foolish enough to actually wave a wand without the permission of the bank, or even produce it, would find themselves at the point of a spear before they could blink.
Nothing inside the bank was throwing up any alerts, other than the usual low level antipathy of wizards towards goblins and the reverse. All of that was expected, accounted for, and nulled out as background noise.
The detectors outside weren't as all-encompassing, but they were much better than most knew. Anything hostile within at least a hundred yards in all directions was locatable to an exact position, and a general bearing and range covered essentially the rest of the Alley. Even the link between the Alley and the Muggle city it resided within was monitored, albeit lightly, purely as a precautionary measure.
Whatever this unclassifiable potential danger was, it had entered through that link. He inspected the runic patterns again to confirm this. Yes, it had first alerted the system as it passed through the barrier. He couldn't tell how it had arrived at the barrier, the instruments weren't sensitive enough that far out to be certain, but the moment it crossed, his board had lit up. And it was still approaching at a steady pace, not hurried, but consistent with a human on foot.
Coming directly towards the bank.
He tapped his fingertips together thoughtfully, the claws clicking together, then turned to the side and started working on a different section of the board. This was seldom used, dealing as it did with particularly unusual threats, ones that had been encountered very infrequently, or long ago. There was something about the readings he was seeing that were tripping a distant memory…
The sound of the door opening behind him didn't distract him from his task. He smelled his coworker Grabbin come into the security room and approach. The other goblin stood to one side silently for a few seconds, studying the instruments, until he said, "What is it?"
"I don't know," he grunted, the guttural sounds of a civilized language echoing around the stone room, quite unlike that horrible patois the humans gibbered. He pitied the upper level staff who had to speak it on a daily basis while dealing with the wizards. "It's not something we've seen before, but it's familiar. Somehow. I can't work out why though."
"Eighty yards out now. Still heading directly this way. Should we call an alert?"
"Not yet. It might not be a threat. Or even coming here. I don't want to be wrong. You recall what happened when Skweez got a little too jumpy and hit the alert when it turned out just to be some fool of a wizard carrying an heirloom he didn't realize was a prohibited artifact. We lost hours of business over something that could have been dealt with in five minutes if he'd waited for a positive identification. I have no wish to have the Head Goblin doing that to me."
Grabbin chuckled darkly. "I doubt Skweez will make that mistake again."
"He won't have a chance for twenty years until he works off enough of his debt to get his old position back," Deezknutz replied, grinning in a vicious manner. He'd never liked Skweez. The feeling had been mutual, of course.
Both goblins watched the instruments track whatever it was as it came closer. Deezknutz had one eye on the system even as most of his attention was on trying to identify the anomaly. Another alarm was triggered as whatever it was stopped directly outside the main entrance. "Three magicals and two muggles, plus that thing," Grabbin commented, eyeing the runes. "I can't work out if this is hostile intent or not. It's… strange." He bent over the board, then straightened up as he shook his head. "Very strange. And there's something odd going on with sensors all over the bank. Like there's some sort of diffuse magic everywhere, although it's not exactly magic either. But that's impossible." He turned to a different set of runes and stiffened.
"There's activity on the Deep sensors!" he exclaimed, sounding horrified. Deezknutz snapped his head around in shock, stared at his colleague, then looked at the same runes. The other goblin was correct, there was a hint of something showing where there should be, and for longer than the lifespan of anyone alive had been, nothing. His heart skipping a few beats he gaped at the runic display. The activity was right at the threshold, might indeed have been noise it was so faint, but he didn't think it was a coincidence that this was happening at the same time as whatever that external thing was happened to be inbound.
A ghastly thought ran through his mind and he looked at Grabbin, who was pale. "Her again?" he said faintly.
"I hope not. We don't have enough eggs. Anyway, she didn't even register on the system, she just appeared out of nowhere. This has to be something different."
"What?"
"I don't know."
They kept their gazes fixed on the Deep sensors, which showed the activity rise... rise... peak... then slowly start to drop off again. A minute or so passed until the indications had gone back to normal, which made both of them relax just a little. Not all the way, because clearly something had happened, something inexplicable, and therefore worrying, but it had at least stopped happening for now.
That only left the other problem, the anomaly outside. Which, when he looked back at his instruments having been distracted by the potentially lethal issue far below them, was…
"It's inside the bank," he said quietly, causing Grabbin to also look. "What is that?"
"I… doesn't that almost look like… but it can't be," Grabbin commented slowly, reaching out to move a few runes. He fiddled with the system for a little longer, altering a few key parameters, then slid one last stone into place. The whole system lit up a pale violet, the color of the most urgent alarm possible.
Both of them froze in terror, staring at the readings. "Fiendfyre?" Deezknutz managed to say in a faint voice, feeling his heart almost stop. "That's impossible. The heat sensors are clear, there's no floor alarm… No signs of the spells needed to summon it."
"But look at that reading! The sheer amount of magical energy is off the scale. Nothing else can do that." Grabbin waved a shaking hand at the instruments.
"If that reading was correct there would be nothing left of the entire Alley but a glowing crater," Deezknutz riposted. "It's showing enough fiendfyre to wipe out half of London."
"I know, but we're both looking at the same thing. What do we do?"
"You're asking me?" They stared at each other trying to remember what the protocol was when faced with an unexpected existential threat that was literally inside their building.
Both hit the alert rune at the same time.
Which didn't actually help much, overall, although it did add a certain lively extra something to the ensuing chaos.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Walking into Gringotts with the others, next to Taylor, Luna looked around with interest. The huge marble room looked just like it had the last time she'd been here with her father at the end of last summer, with goblins dealing with wizards and witches at the counters all down each side. Right at the back was the corridor that ultimately led to the vaults, far below. There were perhaps two dozen magical people in the place doing their business, occupying most of the available goblins. To the sides of the entrance behind them a pair of guards like the ones outside kept an eye on the goings-on, although what they were mostly keeping an eye on right now was Taylor. Her Skitter outfit, with the very nice ankle-length coat she'd turned her fyre into, the collar pulled up around her neck, did rather stand out in the collection of robes and pointy hats.
The mask just added to the overall effect, the eerie yellow eyes actually glowing slightly. Luna grinned inside. Taylor had clearly decided that first impressions were important and improved on her theme, the end result being very intimidating. The way she moved, too, had become completely inhuman, going from total stillness to abrupt motion then back again, which really did convey a certain warning that this was someone who was not to be taken lightly.
Luna found it fascinating, and an excellent example of how sheer body language could do what verbal threats and posturing simply couldn't match. Draco, for example, tried to pull off being dangerous but generally just came over as someone who dearly wanted to be hit in the mouth. Which Hermione had obliged him with at least once, yet another thing Luna admired about the older girl. Next to Taylor, who was truly an expert in silent danger, Draco didn't even register.
She glanced at Hermione, seeing her friend was watching carefully and she suspected taking mental notes on everything. It was, after all, a learning experience watching a master at work. Harry, too, seemed to be enjoying the way the hubbub in the room as wizards, witches, and goblins all talked to and at each other in various tones ranging from dismissive to abrasive slowly died away, each person in turn becoming aware that something unusual had walked through the entrance. The noise level dropped, people turning to gape at Skitter, who just stood watching for a number of seconds. Behind them, Hermione's parents were observing the whole situation with interest, Jennifer leaning slightly towards her husband and whispering very quietly to him something that sounded like, "It needs a pair of swinging saloon doors…"
His muffled snort of laughter quickly died away and Luna wondered what the reference was, making a note to ask Hermione later.
Only ten or eleven seconds passed before the entire bank was dead silent. Every single person in it was looking at Skitter. Several of them had gone stark white in fear, apparently having been present last night in the Ministry Atrium and now looking terrified. Taylor herself scanned the whole room with a slow deliberate motion of her head, then turned slightly to the right and walked directly over to an unoccupied teller, who watched her approach with an expression that was oddly uncertain, mixed with the usual goblin supercilious dismissiveness. Their entire group followed behind her, the other patrons and staff following their progress with severely confused interest and a definite wariness. Their footsteps were quite audible on the marble, although Luna realized with interest that Skitter didn't make a sound as she walked and wondered how she'd made the fyre do that.
Perhaps it ate sound as well as everything else?
She had so many questions. Her father was going to be fascinated by this entire thing. It was likely she'd get quite a lot of articles out of today, one way or the other.
Stopping at the counter, Taylor examined the goblin, who Luna was almost certain swallowed slightly. "Good afternoon," she said in a totally emotionless voice that made him twitch and everyone nearby lean away unconsciously. "I have a financial instrument I wish to execute." Producing the envelope Madam Bones had given her from somewhere, she held it up, then put it on the counter. The goblin looked at it, then her.
"What is this?" he asked as he reached for it. Opening it, he scanned the text, his eyebrows going up, and his expression becoming somewhat strained. "This is an exceedingly large sum," he added when he finished reading.
"I know," Taylor said calmly. "I would like it immediately, please."
"Who are you? Why are you wearing… that?" he queried, putting the document down on the counter again.
"I am Skitter." Luna thought it was a good answer to both questions.
"And do you have an account at Gringotts… Skitter?" he said, sounding out the name with a kind of fascinated distaste. Around them, everyone else, including the other tellers, were avidly listening, Luna noticed. The voices of Taylor and the goblin were the only sounds.
"No. I only arrived here last night," Taylor replied.
He looked down at the paperwork for a moment, then up at her. "And you expect me to believe that you somehow managed to get the Ministry of Magic to pay you this many galleons since last night?"
"The bank draft is right there in front of you. You can check with the Ministry." Her voice didn't waver the slightest although Luna could sense a slight warning present. Apparently the goblin could too as he frowned a little. "I did something they couldn't do, and there was a reward."
Luna could see curiosity burning in the goblin. She was fairly sure the predictable question he then asked was a personal one, and probably not something he should have asked. "And what might that have been?"
Taylor leaned forward slightly, indulging the goblin. Every ear in the bank craned towards her. "I killed Voldemort."
The indrawn breath from the magical people in the room was so synchronized it was impressive. Luna looked around, finding the expressions hilarious. "And quite a few of his little friends. They got in the way, you see. And tried to kill me. I don't particularly like people doing that, and I made sure they didn't get to try again. Apparently there was quite a decent reward for fixing the Dark Lord issue, so…" Skitter, who had been speaking totally if eerily conversationally, tapped the document with one claw-tipped gloved finger. "Pay up, please, and I can be on my way."
He examined her silently for some seconds, while around them frantic whispering started up. The various wizards and witches were staring at Taylor with various looks ranging from shock through fear to in a couple of places anger. Luna had a fairly good idea of the political alignment of the latter.
"You will have to open a vault. A fee will be charged. Following verification of your claim, the requested amount will be paid into the vault, minus the verification fee of course. Withdrawal of funds can be made at that point. We will also require you to identify yourself correctly to prove you are the person named in the document. There is a fee for the personal identity verification, obviously. A key will be issued to you on receipt of payment." The goblin seemed to decide to fall back on procedure in lieu of trying to figure out anything else. Luna concealed a small sigh, because she was fairly certain this wasn't going to go down well. The goblin approach of charging for everything they could come up with was probably about to meet its match…
Skitter leaned forward a little menacingly. "I have no interest in opening a vault. I'm not planning on staying here. I will be taking my payment with me, in a form I can use outside the magical world."
His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed suspiciously. "What do you mean, precisely?" he asked in a hiss.
"I'm happy to accept gold, silver, or platinum. Galleons are of no interest to me unless the gold content is high enough to be useful. Worst case you can pay me in mundane cash and I can convert that into precious metals elsewhere. I expect a good exchange rate on a sum this large, of course." Her voice didn't vary at all. The goblin looked outraged.
"What do you mean, galleons are of no use to you? Galleons are accepted in every magical community on the planet! You insult us by implying otherwise."
Taylor shrugged. "I'm not a magical. I'm something else. And as I just said I'm not staying here. Gold is portable, cash isn't. So I'll take the gold please. Now."
"You're a Muggle and you killed Voldemort?" he said in tones of extreme skepticism, rather more loudly than ideal. The whispering around them stopped dead, then resumed even more frantically. A few more wizards came in through the main entrance, looked around with puzzlement, then moved to ask someone else what was going on. Luna glanced to the side and noticed that both internal guards had moved closer.
"I consider the term 'Muggle' quite discriminatory and would prefer that you didn't use it," Taylor commented mildly.
He grinned a crooked toothed grin at her, seemingly having decided that the limited politeness he'd been showing up until now was redundant. "I'm sure you would, Muggle," he snarled. "We only deal with the magical world. If you don't have magic, you have no right to do business here, no matter what paperwork you happen to have." He pushed the document back to her, Taylor putting her hand on it.
There was a pause, then Taylor looked around at the others. "I was polite, you all saw it, right?" she said to them. Luna, Hermione, and Harry nodded, the last with something of a grin. He'd told Luna several times he wasn't particularly fond of goblins as they annoyed him for many reasons, and Hermione had also said she found them quite difficult to deal with.
Returning her attention to the goblin who was watching her with a smirk, she asked, "You're absolutely certain you're not going to honor the draft?"
"We don't do Muggle banking. If you want to do that, go to Nat West." He shrugged.
"Yet the Ministry money is here. This is a legal document entitling me to it. So, once again, I would like you to give it to me. Then I'll leave."
"Even if we had that much gold available we wouldn't give it to you," he snarled.
"You have at least ten times that amount in vault 913 alone," Skitter told him with complete equanimity. He jolted back, his eyes wide.
"How do you know that, human?" he snapped, sounding very dangerous suddenly.
"I know many things. Would you like to know how many galleons are in vault 294?" she asked. He stared at her, then slapped something on his side of the counter. An alarm rang out, causing the guards who had sidled a little closer to snap to attention, before lowering their spears. The pair outside dashed in and joined them, while several more appeared from the corridor leading to the vaults.
"Who told you?" the teller shouted, leaning over the counter. "You have breached Gringotts security! The penalty for that is death, once we've interrogated you thoroughly." He looked like he was relishing the idea. Luna looked around, seeing Harry had his hand inside his coat where his wand probably was, and Hermione had palmed hers almost unnoticeably. Luna met her friend's eyes and shook her head very slightly, although she made sure her wand was also ready to hand just in case. The two Granger adults were watching the guards carefully, but didn't yet appear too worried, while all the rubbernecking magicals had backed off to a safe distance and were gaping. Two of the guards that had come out of the vault area moved to close the bank doors and stood with their backs against it.
A moment later, an older goblin appeared from a door at the rear of the teller's area and came over. He reached over the first one's shoulder and touched something, the alarm going quiet. "What is going on?" he asked harshly.
"This human, who doesn't even dare show her face, demands we pay her a vast sum of gold, and has knowledge of things she has no right to know," the teller said in a vicious tone, indicating Taylor, who was just standing there calmly. "She knew that vault 913 contains gold, and intimated she knew how many galleons were in vault 294!"
"Sixty three thousand two hundred and nine," Skitter added helpfully. Luna tried not to giggle. Both goblins stared at her, then the new arrival did something just out of sight. He looked up, his eyes hard.
"How did you know that?" he asked sharply.
"She's not even magical," the first one said, making him whip his head around. "She claims to be a muggle."
"I claimed no such thing, and I've already asked you once not to use that term," Taylor objected.
"Be quiet, muggle," the goblin snarled.
"You're being very rude," she replied. "I'm trying to be nice here. Would you like me to stop being nice?"
He sneered at her wordlessly. The second goblin, who was apparently higher ranked in the bank, nudged him to the side and had a short rapid conversation with him in their own language. "How do you know these things, and who are you really?" he demanded in an unfriendly tone, turning back to Taylor. "Explain quickly or it will go badly for you."
"Wanna bet?" Taylor said under her breath, making Luna suppress a smirk. Hermione looked like she was trying not to laugh as well. The goblin motioned to one of the guards, who moved forward and put the tip of his spear mere inches from Taylor's side. She glanced at him, then turned back to the goblin. "You probably won't like what happens if you do that," she advised him.
"I will be the judge of that. Explain."
Skitter held the paperwork up in front of him. "Are you going to pay me?" she queried.
He looked at it, then at her again. "You want us to pay you nearly half a million galleons in gold…"
"Or platinum. I'm not picky," Skitter interjected.
"...Instead of actual galleons, and disregarding that," he pressed on with a glare, "you are not a witch, you are merely a muggle in a costume. I do not know how you laid hands on this document, but it will be part of our investigation. Trust me, we will determine the truth."
"You could simply check with the Ministry," she replied.
"I could, yes. And I will do, after you explain exactly why and how you came by the information about our vaults." He motioned to the guard, who jabbed her with his spear.
To Luna's complete lack of surprise, the tip of the spear flared, then crumbled to ash. Fiendfyre zipped from the head along the shaft so fast the guard didn't even have a chance to let go before the entire thing drifted to the floor in a dark cloud, the sound a crackle of heat accompanied by an unnerving hellish screech that made the entire population of the room other than the five of them stare in horror. Richard and Jennifer were obviously shocked, but having enough knowledge to realize what was going on and being bright enough to predict something like this, they merely twitched a little.
Many of the witches and wizards present screamed, though, and tried to run. Someone screeched out "FIENDFYRE! IT'S FIENDFYRE!"
Which was true, of course, but hardly helpful.
The guard goblin stared at his empty hands, his gauntlets smoking, then raised his eyes to stare at Skitter instead. He backed up slightly even as his companion lunged with his own spear. Taylor sighed and waved her hand idly, fyre particles zipping from it in a pretty cloud that made Luna smile, zooming throughout the room which provoked even more screaming, and consumed every single weapon of every single guard in under two seconds. The fyre released then streamed back to her and was absorbed into her coat.
The screaming was becoming somewhat irritating, Luna thought as she waited to see what happened next, even as a whole series of alarms blared out and the tromping of more guards charging into the room was heard.
This was even more exciting than the Ministry had been, she thought as she pulled out a notebook.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor shook her head. She'd hoped that the goblins would be reasonable and just give her the money. The banker's draft was an official Ministry one after all, with all the relevant seals and magic to prove it, but they hadn't even bothered to check once that idiot decided to be a dick about it. Then his manager decided to escalate.
Well, she could probably do that too, if it came to it, although she didn't want to really hurt anyone too much. Goblins, as annoying as they seemed to be, weren't actually as flat out murderous as the Death Eaters were, and also Madam Bones had asked her to be nice. She rather respected the woman and had tried.
She really had.
But no, they decided to get all funny about it. Oh well. Better luck next time.
"HEY!" she shouted as another batch of goblins appeared from the back of the bank. "All I want is my money and I'll leave! Is this really necessary?"
Someone threw a spear at her.
She immolated it before it got more than a foot from his hand, then let her fyre remove his armor in a flash of heat she kept just that little bit less than required to leave permanent marks. The bank was treated to the sight of a naked, singed, and apocalyptically furious goblin, which was really not very pleasant.
By now there were at least fifty goblins in the room, all of them looking like they wanted to kill everyone who wasn't them, and a huddle of terrified magicals pressed up against the door trying to open it. Apparently it was magically locked though, and even when one of them pulled his wand and tried to blast it down, all he managed was to nearly blow himself and his companions to pieces. Dazed and bleeding on the floor he raised his wand again, so Taylor used a pixie to take it from him before he killed someone.
"This is getting rather out of hand," Richard commented, quite loudly to be heard over the alarms, which were getting more numerous. Taylor nodded, watching as a whole squadron of goblins thundered through a corridor below them heading for the stairs. Deciding she'd had enough, she thought it was time to put a stop to this before everything went totally to shit.
And it was a good occasion to use a trick she'd been thinking of, which would be really cool. Lisa was going to love it.
Taylor let her coat go back to the natural shifting violet-white-orange of raw fiendfyre and wound the brightness up a bit, so everyone squinted in shock. Then she used the fyre to form a dozen separate masses across the room, forming each of them into a fyre version of a swarm clone, in the shape of a six foot tall fyre hornet hovering in the air with a room-shaking hum. Even the attacking goblins froze at the sight.
"That is enough!" she said through the clones, the sound echoing through the suddenly quiet building. "All you had to do was check with the Ministry, confirm my payment was legitimate, and pay me. You have the gold, you could have avoided all of this, but no. You had to get aggressive. I tried to be polite. I asked you for my money. Now I am telling you. Pay me, and I leave. Don't pay me, I will take it anyway, and still leave. Your choice. You have ten seconds to decide, starting now. Ten. Nine. Eight…"
As she counted down, the giant flaming hornets slowly grew larger and hotter, warming the room to a level that most present found very uncomfortable. She was making sure that her friends didn't feel anything though. And hoping that the goblins would take the not very subtle hint and do the sensible thing, since she'd had enough of fighting and just wanted to go and do something more interesting.
She got to three then several hidden doors along the corridor behind the assembled goblins opened, the new batch she'd been tracking pouring out in a wave carrying not only spears, but large crossbows that glimmered with magic. A shouted command in their language and the first four fired at her.
Each magical bolt burst into green fire as it roared across the lobby towards them. She interposed one of her fyre constructs for each bolt and watched as they were consumed, which seemed to upset the goblins. Having finally reached her limit of patience, she dropped the fyre on the whole squad, making it eat everything that wasn't living goblin at a temperature high enough to leave them looking like they'd been lying on the beach for far too long without sunblock. It was a revolting sight, to be honest. Hermione made a gagging sound and Harry winced.
The screaming of the wizards behind her became annoying enough that she sent a flash of fyre from her coat at the door, turning half the middle of it into ash, then ignored them as they fled through the opening. "Fine. If that's how you want to play it." She started walking, waving the others to follow, while using the fyre to form a path with walls on either side. "I know the way. I'll get it myself."
The last goblin to enter held up his hand. He looked older than any of the others, and despite definitely being very worried based on his expression and his heart rate that she could monitor with some of the magical creatures she'd spread about while everyone was distracted, was clearly trying to be calm. "That won't be necessary. You are called Skitter, I believe?"
"Yes," she replied, halting her approach but keeping her constructs ready. He looked at them, then back to her.
"That is fiend fyre."
"Yes, it is."
"You are controlling it with magic I have never heard of before. How?"
"Call it… my special talent," she replied. "Where I come from, a lot of us have unusual abilities."
He examined her closely. "Are all your people's abilities this powerful?" he asked.
She chuckled. "At home I'm considered to have quite a weak power."
His eyes widened a little. "I see." He didn't look particularly happy, but he wasn't attacking, so she was content to let him talk. Perhaps he was going to be more sensible. She'd just about had it with people in this magical world deciding to attack her for no good reason.
Going to the bank wasn't supposed to be this hard, she mused. Although, the last bank she'd been in had been a little awkward too, so perhaps it was her?
No. That seemed unlikely. This time she was legitimately just trying to make a withdrawal. She even had the paperwork to prove it!
"If we give you what you ask for you will leave?" he queried.
"Yes. That was the whole point."
"And never return?" There was definitely a hopeful note there.
"Ideally, sure."
He nodded. "May I see the document?"
Taylor walked closer, and handed it to him through the fyre, which ignored both the paperwork and her arm. He stared, but still reached out for the papers. Scanning it, he nodded, then walked over to one of the now-vacant teller stations and reached over it to retrieve an object he ran over the seal at the bottom of the page. It glowed blue, causing him to nod again. "This is valid."
"That's what I told him," she replied, pointing at the first goblin who was looking very, very nervous now, next to his supervisor who wasn't much better. The older goblin glared at both of them in a way that suggested they were going to have an unpleasant time later.
"Indeed? I believe there will be consequences…" Turning to two of the other tellers, he snarled something to them in his own language, which made them glance at her, nod, and rush off. She got the impression they were eager to leave.
"Sorry about your door, but those wizards were getting annoying," she said, reabsorbing all but one of her constructs into her coat now that things seemed to be settling down. Most of the fyre barrier was also sucked back. She had quite a bit more to play with now, which was useful, too. He watched this carefully, seeming shocked, but didn't show it very much.
"Wizards are always annoying," he grunted. "How did you know the contents of the vaults?"
"I see everything," she replied. "From here to the depths of the caverns below, all is visible to me." Taylor shrugged as he stared. "It's a thing."
"Do you have hostile intents towards Gringotts?" he asked slowly.
"Not as long as I get my payment and no one does anything stupid to me or my friends," she told him. He looked at Luna, Hermione, and the others, then back to her.
"The Potter is a friend of yours?"
"They all are."
"Interesting."
She'd been monitoring the progress of the two goblins he'd sent off, and they'd reached the relevant vault, had an urgent discussion with another goblin, and quickly collected a fairly substantial amount of gold bars from it, piling the whole amount onto a cart which they started rapidly pulling back to the magical elevator they'd used to get down there. Now they were just about at the surface again. "They're here," she said, causing him to examine her, then look over his shoulder in time to see a door open at the end of the corridor. He gave her another thoughtful look.
As the goblins arrived with the gold bars, panting slightly, he asked, "Will you require help moving this?"
Dismissing the rest of the fyre, and returning it to her coat, which after a moment's thought she turned back to the black shade only with a glowing orange hornet's head on the back because it looked cool, she shook her head. Picking up one of the bars she weighed it in her hand. It was around five pounds or so, which was an awful lot of gold, and there were quite a few more on the cart. One hundred and sixty three more, to be exact. Just to be certain, she extended a blade of fyre, almost invisibly thin but glowing brightly, from her glove and sliced the end off the bar. The gold twisted and flowed sluggishly as she held it, the fyre insulating her from the actual heat, while the old goblin just watched with a bemused and rather stunned expression. The inside of the bar was solid gold all the way through, by the looks of it, so they weren't trying to pull a fast one.
Excellent.
How she was going to dispose of all this when she got home she had no idea but Lisa could figure it out, and she was certain the value of gold on Earth Bet in 2011 was a hell of a lot more than it was here. This was probably several million dollars worth back home, and not a small fortune in this world. Satisfied, she started dropping bars into her belt of holding. It didn't take long before she was down to the last one. Picking it up, she looked at it, then at the goblin watching her.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"I am Kalnor, current Head Teller of Gringotts."
"Thank you, Kalnor." She held out the gold bar. "Your fee." He took it from her, not removing his eyes from her mask, but nodding. After a moment's thought, she gave him another one. "To cover the damage to the door." No reason not to be generous, as she'd got what she wanted, and she had kind of wrecked their door. The amount of gold she now had was so stupidly large it didn't really matter one bar more or less in her view. Looking around, she added, "And the weapons. And the armor."
Kalnor snorted. "You are not the usual sort of customer we get. For which I am exceedingly grateful."
Chuckling, she nodded. "I can understand that. You probably won't see me again."
"Forgive me if I fervently hope you are correct."
Taylor grinned inside her mask. His voice was so dry you could have used it to mop up an ocean. "Oddly enough you're not the first person to tell me that."
"I find that entirely plausible."
Nodding to him, she turned to rejoin the others, who were watching closely. Luna was taking notes. Walking past a lot of glaring singed goblins she stopped to inspect the first pair, who flinched slightly, then shook her head and kept going. Behind her, Kalnor was pointing them out to one of the less-scorched guards who looked like he was going to enjoy taking out his frustrations on someone who couldn't set him on fire.
"I think we're done here," she said as she reached Luna and the others.
"I think so too," Harry admitted, looking around and shaking his head in awed respect. "I'm slightly amazed it's still standing." He, like Hermione, was somewhat sooty as they'd been a little too close to the spear she'd initially turned to charcoal. Luna, somehow, hadn't got a speck of it on her, and Hermione's parents had been a little further away so were fine. They all headed for the door. Stepping through the hole, Taylor looked around, seeing a lot of magical folk running around like headless chickens and making far more noise than seemed useful. A few of them spotted her, screamed, and ran for their lives, causing even more mayhem to erupt.
"No disrespect, guys, but whizzys are really weird," she commented as she started down the steps next to Hermione, who started laughing.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Limping into the security office, Deezknutz slumped into his chair and stared into the middle distance with a vacant expression. Some time later, ignoring the clamor from outside the room, he leaned forward and made some careful changes to the security spellwork, his hands trembling so hard he was having trouble adding the relevant runes. When he finally finished after a good hour and two attempts, he connected the new array into the main system. With a shudder, he marked it in the log as "Our Lady of Fyre. Do not provoke."
Then he got up and went to find enough goblin ale to erase his memories of the last couple of hours, while knowing there probably wasn't anything remotely like that amount available.
Unfortunately.
Deezknutz suspiciously examined the security spell system, leaning forward over his desk to get a good look at the various magical indicators that showed what the Gringotts perimeter magic detectors picked up. Many different subsystems of goblin magic which had been added over the centuries scanned a significant amount of Diagon Alley, the vault levels, the bank itself, and certain parts of the deep catacombs which no goblin had dared set foot in for more than five hundred years. No one even really knew what was down there, aside from it being hideously dangerous, hostile in the extreme if provoked, and best left well alone.
They didn't even dare push the monitoring spellwork too far down just in case that itself constituted sufficient provocation for something to take offense. There were still tales told in whispers about how one entire level of the vaults had vanished completely along with over a hundred goblins the last time someone was unwise enough to think he was talented enough to try such a thing.
As it turned out, he'd been wrong. Horrifically so.
Luckily whatever it was that had risen from the Deep had apparently been satisfied with what it tore loose from the foundations of Gringotts, and it had subsequently returned to an uneasy slumber, leaving broken corpses and ruined magic in its wake as a warning, a warning that was heeded. No one had tried again, and even discussing the idea was grounds for disciplinary measures. Rather enthusiastic ones.
Even so, they monitored the boundary between what was known and what was not with great care, if only to give them warning enough to evacuate should the Deep one day decide to become less Deep.
No one particularly believed they'd warn the wizards, of course. If nothing else the humans might act as enough of a distraction as they died to allow goblins to escape disaster, which was reason enough. The fact that wizard-kind in general was despised by goblins was secondary even if relevant.
The sensor spells, thankfully, weren't showing anything from below. But they were showing something very odd approaching on the surface. Something unclassifiable, although it bore hallmarks of something the system was almost identifying. The differences were sufficient that it didn't quite match anything he, or the magic, had ever seen, which was why he was squinting at the indicators and fiddling with the various runestones as he tried to work out what was going on.
Perhaps some ill-conceived attempt by a wizard to bypass the protections for nefarious reasons? He wouldn't put it past the wand-waving idiots because some of them really didn't learn very fast, and had grandiose ideas of stealing from Gringotts. None had succeeded in over a hundred years, and even then only with the help from a traitor who had gained nothing but a long period of regretting his actions before he was granted the privilege of death. The nearest anyone had come was that fool of a Dark Lord of the wizards who had managed to break in some years ago, but he'd left with nothing to show for his stupidity aside from barely escaping with his life.
Should he return, he'd find them ready for him. The tiny chink in the defenses he'd discovered had been well and truly patched.
Tapping a few runes as he reflected on the fate awaiting any intruders while wearing a nasty grin, Deezknutz kept working, attempting to narrow the readings down to something solid. It was still approaching, whatever it was. The instruments showed many wizards wandering hither and yon like the yokels they were, indications of various spells about their persons coming and going as the system looked for threats. Intent detectors scanned for any signs of malice directed at Gringotts. Forbidden magic was scanned for, disguise spells, transformations, invisibility methods, everything the goblins had encountered in the past was monitored and flagged. Customers of the bank were probed to a level that would doubtless infuriate them if they had the faintest idea of just how few secrets they had.
He could from here see their wands, spells on their person, their belongings, any magic affecting them or cast by them, detect a threatening move almost before it could be made, and call in a response within seconds. Any wand waver foolish enough to actually wave a wand without the permission of the bank, or even produce it, would find themselves at the point of a spear before they could blink.
Nothing inside the bank was throwing up any alerts, other than the usual low level antipathy of wizards towards goblins and the reverse. All of that was expected, accounted for, and nulled out as background noise.
The detectors outside weren't as all-encompassing, but they were much better than most knew. Anything hostile within at least a hundred yards in all directions was locatable to an exact position, and a general bearing and range covered essentially the rest of the Alley. Even the link between the Alley and the Muggle city it resided within was monitored, albeit lightly, purely as a precautionary measure.
Whatever this unclassifiable potential danger was, it had entered through that link. He inspected the runic patterns again to confirm this. Yes, it had first alerted the system as it passed through the barrier. He couldn't tell how it had arrived at the barrier, the instruments weren't sensitive enough that far out to be certain, but the moment it crossed, his board had lit up. And it was still approaching at a steady pace, not hurried, but consistent with a human on foot.
Coming directly towards the bank.
He tapped his fingertips together thoughtfully, the claws clicking together, then turned to the side and started working on a different section of the board. This was seldom used, dealing as it did with particularly unusual threats, ones that had been encountered very infrequently, or long ago. There was something about the readings he was seeing that were tripping a distant memory…
The sound of the door opening behind him didn't distract him from his task. He smelled his coworker Grabbin come into the security room and approach. The other goblin stood to one side silently for a few seconds, studying the instruments, until he said, "What is it?"
"I don't know," he grunted, the guttural sounds of a civilized language echoing around the stone room, quite unlike that horrible patois the humans gibbered. He pitied the upper level staff who had to speak it on a daily basis while dealing with the wizards. "It's not something we've seen before, but it's familiar. Somehow. I can't work out why though."
"Eighty yards out now. Still heading directly this way. Should we call an alert?"
"Not yet. It might not be a threat. Or even coming here. I don't want to be wrong. You recall what happened when Skweez got a little too jumpy and hit the alert when it turned out just to be some fool of a wizard carrying an heirloom he didn't realize was a prohibited artifact. We lost hours of business over something that could have been dealt with in five minutes if he'd waited for a positive identification. I have no wish to have the Head Goblin doing that to me."
Grabbin chuckled darkly. "I doubt Skweez will make that mistake again."
"He won't have a chance for twenty years until he works off enough of his debt to get his old position back," Deezknutz replied, grinning in a vicious manner. He'd never liked Skweez. The feeling had been mutual, of course.
Both goblins watched the instruments track whatever it was as it came closer. Deezknutz had one eye on the system even as most of his attention was on trying to identify the anomaly. Another alarm was triggered as whatever it was stopped directly outside the main entrance. "Three magicals and two muggles, plus that thing," Grabbin commented, eyeing the runes. "I can't work out if this is hostile intent or not. It's… strange." He bent over the board, then straightened up as he shook his head. "Very strange. And there's something odd going on with sensors all over the bank. Like there's some sort of diffuse magic everywhere, although it's not exactly magic either. But that's impossible." He turned to a different set of runes and stiffened.
"There's activity on the Deep sensors!" he exclaimed, sounding horrified. Deezknutz snapped his head around in shock, stared at his colleague, then looked at the same runes. The other goblin was correct, there was a hint of something showing where there should be, and for longer than the lifespan of anyone alive had been, nothing. His heart skipping a few beats he gaped at the runic display. The activity was right at the threshold, might indeed have been noise it was so faint, but he didn't think it was a coincidence that this was happening at the same time as whatever that external thing was happened to be inbound.
A ghastly thought ran through his mind and he looked at Grabbin, who was pale. "Her again?" he said faintly.
"I hope not. We don't have enough eggs. Anyway, she didn't even register on the system, she just appeared out of nowhere. This has to be something different."
"What?"
"I don't know."
They kept their gazes fixed on the Deep sensors, which showed the activity rise... rise... peak... then slowly start to drop off again. A minute or so passed until the indications had gone back to normal, which made both of them relax just a little. Not all the way, because clearly something had happened, something inexplicable, and therefore worrying, but it had at least stopped happening for now.
That only left the other problem, the anomaly outside. Which, when he looked back at his instruments having been distracted by the potentially lethal issue far below them, was…
"It's inside the bank," he said quietly, causing Grabbin to also look. "What is that?"
"I… doesn't that almost look like… but it can't be," Grabbin commented slowly, reaching out to move a few runes. He fiddled with the system for a little longer, altering a few key parameters, then slid one last stone into place. The whole system lit up a pale violet, the color of the most urgent alarm possible.
Both of them froze in terror, staring at the readings. "Fiendfyre?" Deezknutz managed to say in a faint voice, feeling his heart almost stop. "That's impossible. The heat sensors are clear, there's no floor alarm… No signs of the spells needed to summon it."
"But look at that reading! The sheer amount of magical energy is off the scale. Nothing else can do that." Grabbin waved a shaking hand at the instruments.
"If that reading was correct there would be nothing left of the entire Alley but a glowing crater," Deezknutz riposted. "It's showing enough fiendfyre to wipe out half of London."
"I know, but we're both looking at the same thing. What do we do?"
"You're asking me?" They stared at each other trying to remember what the protocol was when faced with an unexpected existential threat that was literally inside their building.
Both hit the alert rune at the same time.
Which didn't actually help much, overall, although it did add a certain lively extra something to the ensuing chaos.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Walking into Gringotts with the others, next to Taylor, Luna looked around with interest. The huge marble room looked just like it had the last time she'd been here with her father at the end of last summer, with goblins dealing with wizards and witches at the counters all down each side. Right at the back was the corridor that ultimately led to the vaults, far below. There were perhaps two dozen magical people in the place doing their business, occupying most of the available goblins. To the sides of the entrance behind them a pair of guards like the ones outside kept an eye on the goings-on, although what they were mostly keeping an eye on right now was Taylor. Her Skitter outfit, with the very nice ankle-length coat she'd turned her fyre into, the collar pulled up around her neck, did rather stand out in the collection of robes and pointy hats.
The mask just added to the overall effect, the eerie yellow eyes actually glowing slightly. Luna grinned inside. Taylor had clearly decided that first impressions were important and improved on her theme, the end result being very intimidating. The way she moved, too, had become completely inhuman, going from total stillness to abrupt motion then back again, which really did convey a certain warning that this was someone who was not to be taken lightly.
Luna found it fascinating, and an excellent example of how sheer body language could do what verbal threats and posturing simply couldn't match. Draco, for example, tried to pull off being dangerous but generally just came over as someone who dearly wanted to be hit in the mouth. Which Hermione had obliged him with at least once, yet another thing Luna admired about the older girl. Next to Taylor, who was truly an expert in silent danger, Draco didn't even register.
She glanced at Hermione, seeing her friend was watching carefully and she suspected taking mental notes on everything. It was, after all, a learning experience watching a master at work. Harry, too, seemed to be enjoying the way the hubbub in the room as wizards, witches, and goblins all talked to and at each other in various tones ranging from dismissive to abrasive slowly died away, each person in turn becoming aware that something unusual had walked through the entrance. The noise level dropped, people turning to gape at Skitter, who just stood watching for a number of seconds. Behind them, Hermione's parents were observing the whole situation with interest, Jennifer leaning slightly towards her husband and whispering very quietly to him something that sounded like, "It needs a pair of swinging saloon doors…"
His muffled snort of laughter quickly died away and Luna wondered what the reference was, making a note to ask Hermione later.
Only ten or eleven seconds passed before the entire bank was dead silent. Every single person in it was looking at Skitter. Several of them had gone stark white in fear, apparently having been present last night in the Ministry Atrium and now looking terrified. Taylor herself scanned the whole room with a slow deliberate motion of her head, then turned slightly to the right and walked directly over to an unoccupied teller, who watched her approach with an expression that was oddly uncertain, mixed with the usual goblin supercilious dismissiveness. Their entire group followed behind her, the other patrons and staff following their progress with severely confused interest and a definite wariness. Their footsteps were quite audible on the marble, although Luna realized with interest that Skitter didn't make a sound as she walked and wondered how she'd made the fyre do that.
Perhaps it ate sound as well as everything else?
She had so many questions. Her father was going to be fascinated by this entire thing. It was likely she'd get quite a lot of articles out of today, one way or the other.
Stopping at the counter, Taylor examined the goblin, who Luna was almost certain swallowed slightly. "Good afternoon," she said in a totally emotionless voice that made him twitch and everyone nearby lean away unconsciously. "I have a financial instrument I wish to execute." Producing the envelope Madam Bones had given her from somewhere, she held it up, then put it on the counter. The goblin looked at it, then her.
"What is this?" he asked as he reached for it. Opening it, he scanned the text, his eyebrows going up, and his expression becoming somewhat strained. "This is an exceedingly large sum," he added when he finished reading.
"I know," Taylor said calmly. "I would like it immediately, please."
"Who are you? Why are you wearing… that?" he queried, putting the document down on the counter again.
"I am Skitter." Luna thought it was a good answer to both questions.
"And do you have an account at Gringotts… Skitter?" he said, sounding out the name with a kind of fascinated distaste. Around them, everyone else, including the other tellers, were avidly listening, Luna noticed. The voices of Taylor and the goblin were the only sounds.
"No. I only arrived here last night," Taylor replied.
He looked down at the paperwork for a moment, then up at her. "And you expect me to believe that you somehow managed to get the Ministry of Magic to pay you this many galleons since last night?"
"The bank draft is right there in front of you. You can check with the Ministry." Her voice didn't waver the slightest although Luna could sense a slight warning present. Apparently the goblin could too as he frowned a little. "I did something they couldn't do, and there was a reward."
Luna could see curiosity burning in the goblin. She was fairly sure the predictable question he then asked was a personal one, and probably not something he should have asked. "And what might that have been?"
Taylor leaned forward slightly, indulging the goblin. Every ear in the bank craned towards her. "I killed Voldemort."
The indrawn breath from the magical people in the room was so synchronized it was impressive. Luna looked around, finding the expressions hilarious. "And quite a few of his little friends. They got in the way, you see. And tried to kill me. I don't particularly like people doing that, and I made sure they didn't get to try again. Apparently there was quite a decent reward for fixing the Dark Lord issue, so…" Skitter, who had been speaking totally if eerily conversationally, tapped the document with one claw-tipped gloved finger. "Pay up, please, and I can be on my way."
He examined her silently for some seconds, while around them frantic whispering started up. The various wizards and witches were staring at Taylor with various looks ranging from shock through fear to in a couple of places anger. Luna had a fairly good idea of the political alignment of the latter.
"You will have to open a vault. A fee will be charged. Following verification of your claim, the requested amount will be paid into the vault, minus the verification fee of course. Withdrawal of funds can be made at that point. We will also require you to identify yourself correctly to prove you are the person named in the document. There is a fee for the personal identity verification, obviously. A key will be issued to you on receipt of payment." The goblin seemed to decide to fall back on procedure in lieu of trying to figure out anything else. Luna concealed a small sigh, because she was fairly certain this wasn't going to go down well. The goblin approach of charging for everything they could come up with was probably about to meet its match…
Skitter leaned forward a little menacingly. "I have no interest in opening a vault. I'm not planning on staying here. I will be taking my payment with me, in a form I can use outside the magical world."
His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed suspiciously. "What do you mean, precisely?" he asked in a hiss.
"I'm happy to accept gold, silver, or platinum. Galleons are of no interest to me unless the gold content is high enough to be useful. Worst case you can pay me in mundane cash and I can convert that into precious metals elsewhere. I expect a good exchange rate on a sum this large, of course." Her voice didn't vary at all. The goblin looked outraged.
"What do you mean, galleons are of no use to you? Galleons are accepted in every magical community on the planet! You insult us by implying otherwise."
Taylor shrugged. "I'm not a magical. I'm something else. And as I just said I'm not staying here. Gold is portable, cash isn't. So I'll take the gold please. Now."
"You're a Muggle and you killed Voldemort?" he said in tones of extreme skepticism, rather more loudly than ideal. The whispering around them stopped dead, then resumed even more frantically. A few more wizards came in through the main entrance, looked around with puzzlement, then moved to ask someone else what was going on. Luna glanced to the side and noticed that both internal guards had moved closer.
"I consider the term 'Muggle' quite discriminatory and would prefer that you didn't use it," Taylor commented mildly.
He grinned a crooked toothed grin at her, seemingly having decided that the limited politeness he'd been showing up until now was redundant. "I'm sure you would, Muggle," he snarled. "We only deal with the magical world. If you don't have magic, you have no right to do business here, no matter what paperwork you happen to have." He pushed the document back to her, Taylor putting her hand on it.
There was a pause, then Taylor looked around at the others. "I was polite, you all saw it, right?" she said to them. Luna, Hermione, and Harry nodded, the last with something of a grin. He'd told Luna several times he wasn't particularly fond of goblins as they annoyed him for many reasons, and Hermione had also said she found them quite difficult to deal with.
Returning her attention to the goblin who was watching her with a smirk, she asked, "You're absolutely certain you're not going to honor the draft?"
"We don't do Muggle banking. If you want to do that, go to Nat West." He shrugged.
"Yet the Ministry money is here. This is a legal document entitling me to it. So, once again, I would like you to give it to me. Then I'll leave."
"Even if we had that much gold available we wouldn't give it to you," he snarled.
"You have at least ten times that amount in vault 913 alone," Skitter told him with complete equanimity. He jolted back, his eyes wide.
"How do you know that, human?" he snapped, sounding very dangerous suddenly.
"I know many things. Would you like to know how many galleons are in vault 294?" she asked. He stared at her, then slapped something on his side of the counter. An alarm rang out, causing the guards who had sidled a little closer to snap to attention, before lowering their spears. The pair outside dashed in and joined them, while several more appeared from the corridor leading to the vaults.
"Who told you?" the teller shouted, leaning over the counter. "You have breached Gringotts security! The penalty for that is death, once we've interrogated you thoroughly." He looked like he was relishing the idea. Luna looked around, seeing Harry had his hand inside his coat where his wand probably was, and Hermione had palmed hers almost unnoticeably. Luna met her friend's eyes and shook her head very slightly, although she made sure her wand was also ready to hand just in case. The two Granger adults were watching the guards carefully, but didn't yet appear too worried, while all the rubbernecking magicals had backed off to a safe distance and were gaping. Two of the guards that had come out of the vault area moved to close the bank doors and stood with their backs against it.
A moment later, an older goblin appeared from a door at the rear of the teller's area and came over. He reached over the first one's shoulder and touched something, the alarm going quiet. "What is going on?" he asked harshly.
"This human, who doesn't even dare show her face, demands we pay her a vast sum of gold, and has knowledge of things she has no right to know," the teller said in a vicious tone, indicating Taylor, who was just standing there calmly. "She knew that vault 913 contains gold, and intimated she knew how many galleons were in vault 294!"
"Sixty three thousand two hundred and nine," Skitter added helpfully. Luna tried not to giggle. Both goblins stared at her, then the new arrival did something just out of sight. He looked up, his eyes hard.
"How did you know that?" he asked sharply.
"She's not even magical," the first one said, making him whip his head around. "She claims to be a muggle."
"I claimed no such thing, and I've already asked you once not to use that term," Taylor objected.
"Be quiet, muggle," the goblin snarled.
"You're being very rude," she replied. "I'm trying to be nice here. Would you like me to stop being nice?"
He sneered at her wordlessly. The second goblin, who was apparently higher ranked in the bank, nudged him to the side and had a short rapid conversation with him in their own language. "How do you know these things, and who are you really?" he demanded in an unfriendly tone, turning back to Taylor. "Explain quickly or it will go badly for you."
"Wanna bet?" Taylor said under her breath, making Luna suppress a smirk. Hermione looked like she was trying not to laugh as well. The goblin motioned to one of the guards, who moved forward and put the tip of his spear mere inches from Taylor's side. She glanced at him, then turned back to the goblin. "You probably won't like what happens if you do that," she advised him.
"I will be the judge of that. Explain."
Skitter held the paperwork up in front of him. "Are you going to pay me?" she queried.
He looked at it, then at her again. "You want us to pay you nearly half a million galleons in gold…"
"Or platinum. I'm not picky," Skitter interjected.
"...Instead of actual galleons, and disregarding that," he pressed on with a glare, "you are not a witch, you are merely a muggle in a costume. I do not know how you laid hands on this document, but it will be part of our investigation. Trust me, we will determine the truth."
"You could simply check with the Ministry," she replied.
"I could, yes. And I will do, after you explain exactly why and how you came by the information about our vaults." He motioned to the guard, who jabbed her with his spear.
To Luna's complete lack of surprise, the tip of the spear flared, then crumbled to ash. Fiendfyre zipped from the head along the shaft so fast the guard didn't even have a chance to let go before the entire thing drifted to the floor in a dark cloud, the sound a crackle of heat accompanied by an unnerving hellish screech that made the entire population of the room other than the five of them stare in horror. Richard and Jennifer were obviously shocked, but having enough knowledge to realize what was going on and being bright enough to predict something like this, they merely twitched a little.
Many of the witches and wizards present screamed, though, and tried to run. Someone screeched out "FIENDFYRE! IT'S FIENDFYRE!"
Which was true, of course, but hardly helpful.
The guard goblin stared at his empty hands, his gauntlets smoking, then raised his eyes to stare at Skitter instead. He backed up slightly even as his companion lunged with his own spear. Taylor sighed and waved her hand idly, fyre particles zipping from it in a pretty cloud that made Luna smile, zooming throughout the room which provoked even more screaming, and consumed every single weapon of every single guard in under two seconds. The fyre released then streamed back to her and was absorbed into her coat.
The screaming was becoming somewhat irritating, Luna thought as she waited to see what happened next, even as a whole series of alarms blared out and the tromping of more guards charging into the room was heard.
This was even more exciting than the Ministry had been, she thought as she pulled out a notebook.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor shook her head. She'd hoped that the goblins would be reasonable and just give her the money. The banker's draft was an official Ministry one after all, with all the relevant seals and magic to prove it, but they hadn't even bothered to check once that idiot decided to be a dick about it. Then his manager decided to escalate.
Well, she could probably do that too, if it came to it, although she didn't want to really hurt anyone too much. Goblins, as annoying as they seemed to be, weren't actually as flat out murderous as the Death Eaters were, and also Madam Bones had asked her to be nice. She rather respected the woman and had tried.
She really had.
But no, they decided to get all funny about it. Oh well. Better luck next time.
"HEY!" she shouted as another batch of goblins appeared from the back of the bank. "All I want is my money and I'll leave! Is this really necessary?"
Someone threw a spear at her.
She immolated it before it got more than a foot from his hand, then let her fyre remove his armor in a flash of heat she kept just that little bit less than required to leave permanent marks. The bank was treated to the sight of a naked, singed, and apocalyptically furious goblin, which was really not very pleasant.
By now there were at least fifty goblins in the room, all of them looking like they wanted to kill everyone who wasn't them, and a huddle of terrified magicals pressed up against the door trying to open it. Apparently it was magically locked though, and even when one of them pulled his wand and tried to blast it down, all he managed was to nearly blow himself and his companions to pieces. Dazed and bleeding on the floor he raised his wand again, so Taylor used a pixie to take it from him before he killed someone.
"This is getting rather out of hand," Richard commented, quite loudly to be heard over the alarms, which were getting more numerous. Taylor nodded, watching as a whole squadron of goblins thundered through a corridor below them heading for the stairs. Deciding she'd had enough, she thought it was time to put a stop to this before everything went totally to shit.
And it was a good occasion to use a trick she'd been thinking of, which would be really cool. Lisa was going to love it.
Taylor let her coat go back to the natural shifting violet-white-orange of raw fiendfyre and wound the brightness up a bit, so everyone squinted in shock. Then she used the fyre to form a dozen separate masses across the room, forming each of them into a fyre version of a swarm clone, in the shape of a six foot tall fyre hornet hovering in the air with a room-shaking hum. Even the attacking goblins froze at the sight.
"That is enough!" she said through the clones, the sound echoing through the suddenly quiet building. "All you had to do was check with the Ministry, confirm my payment was legitimate, and pay me. You have the gold, you could have avoided all of this, but no. You had to get aggressive. I tried to be polite. I asked you for my money. Now I am telling you. Pay me, and I leave. Don't pay me, I will take it anyway, and still leave. Your choice. You have ten seconds to decide, starting now. Ten. Nine. Eight…"
As she counted down, the giant flaming hornets slowly grew larger and hotter, warming the room to a level that most present found very uncomfortable. She was making sure that her friends didn't feel anything though. And hoping that the goblins would take the not very subtle hint and do the sensible thing, since she'd had enough of fighting and just wanted to go and do something more interesting.
She got to three then several hidden doors along the corridor behind the assembled goblins opened, the new batch she'd been tracking pouring out in a wave carrying not only spears, but large crossbows that glimmered with magic. A shouted command in their language and the first four fired at her.
Each magical bolt burst into green fire as it roared across the lobby towards them. She interposed one of her fyre constructs for each bolt and watched as they were consumed, which seemed to upset the goblins. Having finally reached her limit of patience, she dropped the fyre on the whole squad, making it eat everything that wasn't living goblin at a temperature high enough to leave them looking like they'd been lying on the beach for far too long without sunblock. It was a revolting sight, to be honest. Hermione made a gagging sound and Harry winced.
The screaming of the wizards behind her became annoying enough that she sent a flash of fyre from her coat at the door, turning half the middle of it into ash, then ignored them as they fled through the opening. "Fine. If that's how you want to play it." She started walking, waving the others to follow, while using the fyre to form a path with walls on either side. "I know the way. I'll get it myself."
The last goblin to enter held up his hand. He looked older than any of the others, and despite definitely being very worried based on his expression and his heart rate that she could monitor with some of the magical creatures she'd spread about while everyone was distracted, was clearly trying to be calm. "That won't be necessary. You are called Skitter, I believe?"
"Yes," she replied, halting her approach but keeping her constructs ready. He looked at them, then back to her.
"That is fiend fyre."
"Yes, it is."
"You are controlling it with magic I have never heard of before. How?"
"Call it… my special talent," she replied. "Where I come from, a lot of us have unusual abilities."
He examined her closely. "Are all your people's abilities this powerful?" he asked.
She chuckled. "At home I'm considered to have quite a weak power."
His eyes widened a little. "I see." He didn't look particularly happy, but he wasn't attacking, so she was content to let him talk. Perhaps he was going to be more sensible. She'd just about had it with people in this magical world deciding to attack her for no good reason.
Going to the bank wasn't supposed to be this hard, she mused. Although, the last bank she'd been in had been a little awkward too, so perhaps it was her?
No. That seemed unlikely. This time she was legitimately just trying to make a withdrawal. She even had the paperwork to prove it!
"If we give you what you ask for you will leave?" he queried.
"Yes. That was the whole point."
"And never return?" There was definitely a hopeful note there.
"Ideally, sure."
He nodded. "May I see the document?"
Taylor walked closer, and handed it to him through the fyre, which ignored both the paperwork and her arm. He stared, but still reached out for the papers. Scanning it, he nodded, then walked over to one of the now-vacant teller stations and reached over it to retrieve an object he ran over the seal at the bottom of the page. It glowed blue, causing him to nod again. "This is valid."
"That's what I told him," she replied, pointing at the first goblin who was looking very, very nervous now, next to his supervisor who wasn't much better. The older goblin glared at both of them in a way that suggested they were going to have an unpleasant time later.
"Indeed? I believe there will be consequences…" Turning to two of the other tellers, he snarled something to them in his own language, which made them glance at her, nod, and rush off. She got the impression they were eager to leave.
"Sorry about your door, but those wizards were getting annoying," she said, reabsorbing all but one of her constructs into her coat now that things seemed to be settling down. Most of the fyre barrier was also sucked back. She had quite a bit more to play with now, which was useful, too. He watched this carefully, seeming shocked, but didn't show it very much.
"Wizards are always annoying," he grunted. "How did you know the contents of the vaults?"
"I see everything," she replied. "From here to the depths of the caverns below, all is visible to me." Taylor shrugged as he stared. "It's a thing."
"Do you have hostile intents towards Gringotts?" he asked slowly.
"Not as long as I get my payment and no one does anything stupid to me or my friends," she told him. He looked at Luna, Hermione, and the others, then back to her.
"The Potter is a friend of yours?"
"They all are."
"Interesting."
She'd been monitoring the progress of the two goblins he'd sent off, and they'd reached the relevant vault, had an urgent discussion with another goblin, and quickly collected a fairly substantial amount of gold bars from it, piling the whole amount onto a cart which they started rapidly pulling back to the magical elevator they'd used to get down there. Now they were just about at the surface again. "They're here," she said, causing him to examine her, then look over his shoulder in time to see a door open at the end of the corridor. He gave her another thoughtful look.
As the goblins arrived with the gold bars, panting slightly, he asked, "Will you require help moving this?"
Dismissing the rest of the fyre, and returning it to her coat, which after a moment's thought she turned back to the black shade only with a glowing orange hornet's head on the back because it looked cool, she shook her head. Picking up one of the bars she weighed it in her hand. It was around five pounds or so, which was an awful lot of gold, and there were quite a few more on the cart. One hundred and sixty three more, to be exact. Just to be certain, she extended a blade of fyre, almost invisibly thin but glowing brightly, from her glove and sliced the end off the bar. The gold twisted and flowed sluggishly as she held it, the fyre insulating her from the actual heat, while the old goblin just watched with a bemused and rather stunned expression. The inside of the bar was solid gold all the way through, by the looks of it, so they weren't trying to pull a fast one.
Excellent.
How she was going to dispose of all this when she got home she had no idea but Lisa could figure it out, and she was certain the value of gold on Earth Bet in 2011 was a hell of a lot more than it was here. This was probably several million dollars worth back home, and not a small fortune in this world. Satisfied, she started dropping bars into her belt of holding. It didn't take long before she was down to the last one. Picking it up, she looked at it, then at the goblin watching her.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"I am Kalnor, current Head Teller of Gringotts."
"Thank you, Kalnor." She held out the gold bar. "Your fee." He took it from her, not removing his eyes from her mask, but nodding. After a moment's thought, she gave him another one. "To cover the damage to the door." No reason not to be generous, as she'd got what she wanted, and she had kind of wrecked their door. The amount of gold she now had was so stupidly large it didn't really matter one bar more or less in her view. Looking around, she added, "And the weapons. And the armor."
Kalnor snorted. "You are not the usual sort of customer we get. For which I am exceedingly grateful."
Chuckling, she nodded. "I can understand that. You probably won't see me again."
"Forgive me if I fervently hope you are correct."
Taylor grinned inside her mask. His voice was so dry you could have used it to mop up an ocean. "Oddly enough you're not the first person to tell me that."
"I find that entirely plausible."
Nodding to him, she turned to rejoin the others, who were watching closely. Luna was taking notes. Walking past a lot of glaring singed goblins she stopped to inspect the first pair, who flinched slightly, then shook her head and kept going. Behind her, Kalnor was pointing them out to one of the less-scorched guards who looked like he was going to enjoy taking out his frustrations on someone who couldn't set him on fire.
"I think we're done here," she said as she reached Luna and the others.
"I think so too," Harry admitted, looking around and shaking his head in awed respect. "I'm slightly amazed it's still standing." He, like Hermione, was somewhat sooty as they'd been a little too close to the spear she'd initially turned to charcoal. Luna, somehow, hadn't got a speck of it on her, and Hermione's parents had been a little further away so were fine. They all headed for the door. Stepping through the hole, Taylor looked around, seeing a lot of magical folk running around like headless chickens and making far more noise than seemed useful. A few of them spotted her, screamed, and ran for their lives, causing even more mayhem to erupt.
"No disrespect, guys, but whizzys are really weird," she commented as she started down the steps next to Hermione, who started laughing.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Limping into the security office, Deezknutz slumped into his chair and stared into the middle distance with a vacant expression. Some time later, ignoring the clamor from outside the room, he leaned forward and made some careful changes to the security spellwork, his hands trembling so hard he was having trouble adding the relevant runes. When he finally finished after a good hour and two attempts, he connected the new array into the main system. With a shudder, he marked it in the log as "Our Lady of Fyre. Do not provoke."
Then he got up and went to find enough goblin ale to erase his memories of the last couple of hours, while knowing there probably wasn't anything remotely like that amount available.
Unfortunately.
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- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
That should help everyone sleep, contented
- Location
- Hot Springs
That should help everyone sleep, contented
Why yes, I believe I can go to work tonight happy
.Goblins ARE rather excitable, aren't they?
Svn0One
Lazy Reader
- Location
- Made a Box Fort
- Pronouns
- He/Him
why do i have a feeling more like this will be occurring?