Harry Potter and the Scabbard of Excalibur [AU]
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan Honor, Friendship and Family
Hardly.. It's about time management. Say give preparing for Snape two days - he sets up an alibi, finds out where Snape sleeps. Brews the potion in an hour or two or straight up buys it. Gathers a stunned animal and cloaks his way to Mungo's. Arranging the trip takes one day, unless he portkeys nearby or floos to a friend's house. After that it's cloak time and he has enough skill in runes to counter the alarms. Finds Snape asleep - does the deed. Cloaks out and then arrange a travel back. So that's two days max.
If all that tires him then the next actions have him unwinding at home and entertaining guests in the sleepover. They bond with Sirius and Kreacher too over the next five days. Brings up therapy too, to Sirius from a professional and magical means of coping ala potions, occlumency, pensives. Action transferred off to Sirius to do as he sees fit.
We aren't doing anything else strenuous that are in the plans for next week like visiting Shacklebolt with Dumbledore in the ministry or Learning to bypass the Trace, or travelling to Ruins. Or finding the Heir. Now if you stacked those into these actions we could have action economy issues. It's just one adventure option, one rest plan and two dialogue plan.
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- Location
- Louisiana
I'm wary of any choices that restrict future choices. Everlasting attainment is very powerful, but it forces us to be morally righteous. We're kind of a blooming dark lord here, I honestly don't see us meeting the requirements of unbridled heroism anytime soon.
Personally I like the Runed Apparition option more. It would let us get to the realms of Ecliptic attainment - like the forest, the everchanging place and the underground place with little magic. This means Alchemy will become a viable option for us again. Oh and mars too.
We were talking about dealing with the time sensitive stuff for next week earlier. Here's what we came up so far.
Week 2:
[] Talk to Dumbledore about the events and then approach Shacklebolt together with him in the Ministry.
[] Contact the potential Heirs, check if Ron is the one when he visits. Astrologically refine your previous findings to see if you can narrow things down. Floo over to the heirs and show them the horoscope. Explain to them that they have great potential and test to see if they have a reaction to the ring.
[] Pool together your resources with the Chosen and pledge to become stronger.
We were talking about dealing with the time sensitive stuff for next week earlier. Here's what we came up so far.
Week 2:
[] Talk to Dumbledore about the events and then approach Shacklebolt together with him in the Ministry.
[] Contact the potential Heirs, check if Ron is the one when he visits. Astrologically refine your previous findings to see if you can narrow things down. Floo over to the heirs and show them the horoscope. Explain to them that they have great potential and test to see if they have a reaction to the ring.
[] Pool together your resources with the Chosen and pledge to become stronger.
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If we got a Horcrux, what would our ideal first vessel be? Remembering that it makes the thing itself nigh-invincible.
I've got a toss-up between the whole of House Hufflepuff and Hermione, on the grounds the former is our thing and the latter would be step one towards recompleting the Tris.
I've got a toss-up between the whole of House Hufflepuff and Hermione, on the grounds the former is our thing and the latter would be step one towards recompleting the Tris.
Lightwavers
Purple Noodle
- Pronouns
- they/them
Making another person a horcrux is incredibly skeevy. I'd be rooting for his downfall at that point. Plus, halving of magical power doesn't sound like all that great a deal. Surely there's some form of actual phylactery somewhere, right? Lichdom is so much more appealing then the half-assed ghost version, even accounting for the fact that Harry can get around the ghost part.
Geist managed it though and presumably recovered the magical power he invested per Horcrux. DA opens up a lot of options for stuff like that if we're willing to put in the work.
- Location
- Louisiana
Horcrux to me looks like the mirror of everlasting. I don't like it for the same reason, horcruxes are the Dark Arts kind of dark arts that involve killing babies and cute pets. It's not the extremely dangerous magic that can do a lot of damage but is morally ambiguous. It's the split your soul and murder someone type of magic.
Taking that into account, it's a poor man's phylactery. It causes you to split your power in half, then it is a major weak point. It'll save you from death, but maybe if you had full power you wouldn't need it in the first place. It's a big moral crossroad with a huge downside for shitty "immortality."
Taking that into account, it's a poor man's phylactery. It causes you to split your power in half, then it is a major weak point. It'll save you from death, but maybe if you had full power you wouldn't need it in the first place. It's a big moral crossroad with a huge downside for shitty "immortality."
Judging by the description, moral ambiguity can be circumvented, and magical power can be restored. Considering that the Dark Lord with six horcruxes was magically stronger than Dumbledore.
Wow, it must be nice to be able to imagine that there are reasonable methods for achieving eternal life and undying protection.
My ideal choice would be to staple our soul to the bedrock underneath Hogwarts. That way when we inevitably die and get resurrected, we can be the Sword in the Stone.
My ideal choice would be to staple our soul to the bedrock underneath Hogwarts. That way when we inevitably die and get resurrected, we can be the Sword in the Stone.
Harry Potter or my surprised rebirth into a Sword in Stone.
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
Alright, vote's locked. Honor, Friendship and Family is victorious!
[X] Plan Honor, Friendship and Family
-[X] Help Professor Snape
-[X] Community Sleepover
--[X] In private, tell Neville and Hermione about the dream.
-[X] Socialize: Sirius
--[X] Attempt to reassure him and propose tackling your problems together. Suggest trying professional (mental health) care, treatment and therapy, claiming that you both might be in need of such.
[X] Plan Honor, Friendship and Family
-[X] Help Professor Snape
-[X] Community Sleepover
--[X] In private, tell Neville and Hermione about the dream.
-[X] Socialize: Sirius
--[X] Attempt to reassure him and propose tackling your problems together. Suggest trying professional (mental health) care, treatment and therapy, claiming that you both might be in need of such.
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Aiding the Broken-Faced Man
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
Aiding the Broken-Faced Man
In a pleasant turn of events for Harry, the subsequent infiltration of Saint Mungo's Hospital proved to be an exercise in pure simplicity. He donned the Cloak of Invisibility, equipped with an improvised bandoleer of potions and several plunkballs to use as distractions in case he needed people to move out of the way. Harry used door-unlocking Charms to enter through the back, moving past the nurses and doctors in the staff room like a materialized wraith among hapless Muggles. His Cloak handled the rest of the heavy lifting, allowing him to slip past the complex abjurations of the facility completely unnoticed; the night guard was none the wiser about his passage.
After reaching the administrative wing on the first floor, he frowned, as the Welcome Witch was keeping a wary eye on everything resting on her desk and in her immediate surroundings. Harry dropped a plunkball down to his feet, then stepped back and muttered a spell. It launched abruptly at the ceiling, with sufficient velocity to crack one of the marble tiles, causing fragments to spray down. The Welcome Witch immediately rose and jogged out into the hallway, yelling, "Hey, who did that?! Who's there?"
Harry waltzed past her, completely overlooked, dropping another handful of plunkballs with rune arrays - setting them to launch in one-second intervals - as he went. He stepped into her booth and was fast to look around while the Welcome Witch shrieked at the sudden blast of the plunkballs.
"Orderlies! Orderlies!" she called out, while Harry rummaged through the filing cabinets.
Ah, there we are. Severus Snape. He's admitted to secret room number seventy-five.
Geist's pondersome voice interjected. I think you should hurry, scourge-boy.
I'm not a ghost, Harry thought. He replaced the files and stepped out gingerly, careful not to be struck by any of his enchanted plunkballs. The helpless Welcome Witch was taking cover below a table holding a number of antiquated magazines and ancient newspapers. Harry once again hopped past the poor woman, keeping his head carefully low as the walls and ceiling popped with characteristic sounds of extensive vandalism being accomplished. A single plunkball whizzed dangerously close to his head, striking a lamp with enough force to make its body practically explode.
A 'scourge,' not a 'skurge.' Nevermind. I came up with a joke. Knock-knock.
Who's there? Harry finally reached the stairs and managed to catch a couple of breaths, while a stream of wizards sprinted past him in a haste to get downstairs and respond to whatever the heck was making so much noise.
Hurry, Potter; Hurry.
Very funny.
Harry reached Professor Snape's medical room in a minute of calm walking. He entered, made sure the door was locked, and then looked back at the bed in the center of the room. Damn, was Neville right on the money. The Potions Master already looked unkempt, greasy, and generally nasty before the incident.
Now, even under the covers of multiple enchanted bandages tied around his face, Harry doubted that someone meeting him for the first time would even think he was a human being. His nose was cloven asunder to the point of basically not existing, and deep scars crossed over his face in varying headings and sizes; the entire right side was as good as absent of skin. A patch of hair was missing from a point slightly over the forehead, revealing burnished pink skin. His lower lip seemed to be partially cut, such that it hung too low. His torso and arms also seemed to be completely ruined, covered in bandages and plaster casts where needed.
Apparently, though, he wasn't unconscious. And he'd noticed something entering, somehow.
"Accio Cloak." Harry's Cloak resisted being pulled, but the force of the Professor's spell was so immense that a second later it was flung across the room and landed gently on the man's lap, twitching as though alive and trying to get back to its owner. Snape put a hand over it, keeping it firmly in place.
"Oh," Harry blankly stumbled. "I didn't know that... can happen."
"Next time, maybe pin it to your lapel, Potter," Snape replied with a low, mild growl. His voice was distorted by his injuries. "Sloppy."
"They let you keep your wand?" They didn't allow Harry to keep his own.
"Yes," the man drawled, "Precisely in case something like this happened - a young little troublemaker finding his way in. What are you doing here, Potter?"
They stared at each other for a good, long moment - Harry through wide open, emotional and surprised, green eyes; Snape, through a pinched, narrow glare that promised destruction should he be dissatisfied with the boy's response. They continued to stare in this manner for a while, man against boy, soul against soul.
"Is that a piano on your face?" Harry asked.
"What-?"
"Stupefy."
A second later, Snape was unconscious and his wand dropped to the floor.
Harry shook his head. "Should've gone in Bellatrix's tracks and taken my wand as well." Not that it'd work, given the dueling holster.
I can't believe that stupid fucking distraction worked. Did you see that? He went cross-eye for a moment!
Harry shrugged. He's probably high on whatever pain-relieving medicines Mungo's gives out.
He casually approached the Professor and reached into the knapsack he'd brought along, pulling out a bunch of unconscious birds, rats, and other pests that he'd managed to track down around Grimmauld Place. It was long, grisly work to use the Wound-Transferring Spell in order to methodically transport each of the Professor's cursed injuries to the small animals. It wasn't possible to use the spell on dead bodies, for whatever reason, and the wounds kept their dimensions in a static, rather than relative, fashion upon transference, meaning that a single wound usually killed an animal instantly and forced him to pick out a new sacrifice.
It was like working through the ammunition in a gun's magazine, he supposed; only far more grotesque and ghoulish.
After roughly five minutes of tiring spellcasting and maybe some thirty deceased vermin accumulating in a pile on the floor, Professor Snape was... It'd be an exaggeration to call him even remotely 'healed,' but he was definitely better. A good amount of the facial scarring was simply gone, returning him to his ordinary yet tolerable ugliness. He'd also miraculously managed to fix up some of the wounds on his torso and arms, such that now he'd only need a single arm in a sling, and he'd probably be more or less fine by the end of the summer. Not that Harry was a Healer and qualified to speak on such matters.
He then cleaned up the scene of the crime. He funneled a single Forgetfulness Potion into the Professor's mouth, in absence of any training with Obliviation Charms. It was brewed in such a manner as to completely ruin any recollection of recent events, and rip apart the associations made thereby. Harry scattered around some empty potion flasks, equipment, and spare ingredients that were associated with healing potions. He also transformed the dead critters into a giant splatter of bloody sludge, and then used a domestic cleaning Charm to make the splatter vanish.
And then, quite simply, Harry left.
---
After this, you're still going to have a Community Sleepover where you inform Neville and Hermione about the dream; as well as some much-needed Socialization with your guardian, one where you suggest getting therapy. At the moment, you've got 8.15 Gnosis.
[ ] No Dreams, No Worries [1 Gnosis] - Again, Harry's evil dreams can be staved off yet another night. As you keep picking this option in future updates, the cost of this is going to increase gradually. Alternatively, however...
[ ] Face Them Now - Maybe you should keep escaping consequences and face your demons now? Consider the potential benefits of knowing what the nightmares actually involve - you know nothing about them! Maybe I've been lying all this time to scare you, and they're actually rather pleasant dreams? Rip the band-aid off now, fast and (relatively) painless, and discover the truth for yourself! Aermora Bravus...
Also...
[ ] Focus: "Heir" of Slytherin - Attempt to find the bearer of the Ring of Slytherin. It's the one thing that matters the most right now - you probably have until the next school year, and that's not a whole lot of time!
[ ] Focus: Mysterious Azkabanite - Attempt to find out the identity and location of the Azkabanite who attacked Hogwarts, then avenge everyone who died and bring him to justice. It's time for a piece of good, old-fashioned revenge (as well as classic sleuthing.)
[ ] Focus: Death Himself - How does one make any kind of progress whatsoever in a war against an abstract concept such as Death? Geist mentioned the Department of Secrets a while ago. Maybe that place has some useful answers?
---
Here's a character sheet for this quest.
As a reminder, you can join Discord here for discussion, as well as alert pings to let you know an update is going to come out in a short while. All discussion on Discord counts partially towards your Gnosis progression and offers boosted rewards if relevant parts of the discussion are reposted in the thread.
In a pleasant turn of events for Harry, the subsequent infiltration of Saint Mungo's Hospital proved to be an exercise in pure simplicity. He donned the Cloak of Invisibility, equipped with an improvised bandoleer of potions and several plunkballs to use as distractions in case he needed people to move out of the way. Harry used door-unlocking Charms to enter through the back, moving past the nurses and doctors in the staff room like a materialized wraith among hapless Muggles. His Cloak handled the rest of the heavy lifting, allowing him to slip past the complex abjurations of the facility completely unnoticed; the night guard was none the wiser about his passage.
After reaching the administrative wing on the first floor, he frowned, as the Welcome Witch was keeping a wary eye on everything resting on her desk and in her immediate surroundings. Harry dropped a plunkball down to his feet, then stepped back and muttered a spell. It launched abruptly at the ceiling, with sufficient velocity to crack one of the marble tiles, causing fragments to spray down. The Welcome Witch immediately rose and jogged out into the hallway, yelling, "Hey, who did that?! Who's there?"
Harry waltzed past her, completely overlooked, dropping another handful of plunkballs with rune arrays - setting them to launch in one-second intervals - as he went. He stepped into her booth and was fast to look around while the Welcome Witch shrieked at the sudden blast of the plunkballs.
"Orderlies! Orderlies!" she called out, while Harry rummaged through the filing cabinets.
Ah, there we are. Severus Snape. He's admitted to secret room number seventy-five.
Geist's pondersome voice interjected. I think you should hurry, scourge-boy.
I'm not a ghost, Harry thought. He replaced the files and stepped out gingerly, careful not to be struck by any of his enchanted plunkballs. The helpless Welcome Witch was taking cover below a table holding a number of antiquated magazines and ancient newspapers. Harry once again hopped past the poor woman, keeping his head carefully low as the walls and ceiling popped with characteristic sounds of extensive vandalism being accomplished. A single plunkball whizzed dangerously close to his head, striking a lamp with enough force to make its body practically explode.
A 'scourge,' not a 'skurge.' Nevermind. I came up with a joke. Knock-knock.
Who's there? Harry finally reached the stairs and managed to catch a couple of breaths, while a stream of wizards sprinted past him in a haste to get downstairs and respond to whatever the heck was making so much noise.
Hurry, Potter; Hurry.
Very funny.
Harry reached Professor Snape's medical room in a minute of calm walking. He entered, made sure the door was locked, and then looked back at the bed in the center of the room. Damn, was Neville right on the money. The Potions Master already looked unkempt, greasy, and generally nasty before the incident.
Now, even under the covers of multiple enchanted bandages tied around his face, Harry doubted that someone meeting him for the first time would even think he was a human being. His nose was cloven asunder to the point of basically not existing, and deep scars crossed over his face in varying headings and sizes; the entire right side was as good as absent of skin. A patch of hair was missing from a point slightly over the forehead, revealing burnished pink skin. His lower lip seemed to be partially cut, such that it hung too low. His torso and arms also seemed to be completely ruined, covered in bandages and plaster casts where needed.
Apparently, though, he wasn't unconscious. And he'd noticed something entering, somehow.
"Accio Cloak." Harry's Cloak resisted being pulled, but the force of the Professor's spell was so immense that a second later it was flung across the room and landed gently on the man's lap, twitching as though alive and trying to get back to its owner. Snape put a hand over it, keeping it firmly in place.
"Oh," Harry blankly stumbled. "I didn't know that... can happen."
"Next time, maybe pin it to your lapel, Potter," Snape replied with a low, mild growl. His voice was distorted by his injuries. "Sloppy."
"They let you keep your wand?" They didn't allow Harry to keep his own.
"Yes," the man drawled, "Precisely in case something like this happened - a young little troublemaker finding his way in. What are you doing here, Potter?"
They stared at each other for a good, long moment - Harry through wide open, emotional and surprised, green eyes; Snape, through a pinched, narrow glare that promised destruction should he be dissatisfied with the boy's response. They continued to stare in this manner for a while, man against boy, soul against soul.
"Is that a piano on your face?" Harry asked.
"What-?"
"Stupefy."
A second later, Snape was unconscious and his wand dropped to the floor.
Harry shook his head. "Should've gone in Bellatrix's tracks and taken my wand as well." Not that it'd work, given the dueling holster.
I can't believe that stupid fucking distraction worked. Did you see that? He went cross-eye for a moment!
Harry shrugged. He's probably high on whatever pain-relieving medicines Mungo's gives out.
He casually approached the Professor and reached into the knapsack he'd brought along, pulling out a bunch of unconscious birds, rats, and other pests that he'd managed to track down around Grimmauld Place. It was long, grisly work to use the Wound-Transferring Spell in order to methodically transport each of the Professor's cursed injuries to the small animals. It wasn't possible to use the spell on dead bodies, for whatever reason, and the wounds kept their dimensions in a static, rather than relative, fashion upon transference, meaning that a single wound usually killed an animal instantly and forced him to pick out a new sacrifice.
It was like working through the ammunition in a gun's magazine, he supposed; only far more grotesque and ghoulish.
After roughly five minutes of tiring spellcasting and maybe some thirty deceased vermin accumulating in a pile on the floor, Professor Snape was... It'd be an exaggeration to call him even remotely 'healed,' but he was definitely better. A good amount of the facial scarring was simply gone, returning him to his ordinary yet tolerable ugliness. He'd also miraculously managed to fix up some of the wounds on his torso and arms, such that now he'd only need a single arm in a sling, and he'd probably be more or less fine by the end of the summer. Not that Harry was a Healer and qualified to speak on such matters.
He then cleaned up the scene of the crime. He funneled a single Forgetfulness Potion into the Professor's mouth, in absence of any training with Obliviation Charms. It was brewed in such a manner as to completely ruin any recollection of recent events, and rip apart the associations made thereby. Harry scattered around some empty potion flasks, equipment, and spare ingredients that were associated with healing potions. He also transformed the dead critters into a giant splatter of bloody sludge, and then used a domestic cleaning Charm to make the splatter vanish.
And then, quite simply, Harry left.
---
After this, you're still going to have a Community Sleepover where you inform Neville and Hermione about the dream; as well as some much-needed Socialization with your guardian, one where you suggest getting therapy. At the moment, you've got 8.15 Gnosis.
[ ] No Dreams, No Worries [1 Gnosis] - Again, Harry's evil dreams can be staved off yet another night. As you keep picking this option in future updates, the cost of this is going to increase gradually. Alternatively, however...
[ ] Face Them Now - Maybe you should keep escaping consequences and face your demons now? Consider the potential benefits of knowing what the nightmares actually involve - you know nothing about them! Maybe I've been lying all this time to scare you, and they're actually rather pleasant dreams? Rip the band-aid off now, fast and (relatively) painless, and discover the truth for yourself! Aermora Bravus...
Also...
[ ] Focus: "Heir" of Slytherin - Attempt to find the bearer of the Ring of Slytherin. It's the one thing that matters the most right now - you probably have until the next school year, and that's not a whole lot of time!
[ ] Focus: Mysterious Azkabanite - Attempt to find out the identity and location of the Azkabanite who attacked Hogwarts, then avenge everyone who died and bring him to justice. It's time for a piece of good, old-fashioned revenge (as well as classic sleuthing.)
[ ] Focus: Death Himself - How does one make any kind of progress whatsoever in a war against an abstract concept such as Death? Geist mentioned the Department of Secrets a while ago. Maybe that place has some useful answers?
---
Here's a character sheet for this quest.
As a reminder, you can join Discord here for discussion, as well as alert pings to let you know an update is going to come out in a short while. All discussion on Discord counts partially towards your Gnosis progression and offers boosted rewards if relevant parts of the discussion are reposted in the thread.
- Location
- US
[X] No Dreams, No Worries
[X] Focus: "Heir" of Slytherin
Step by step.
As for the first, I'm not particularly keen on introducing a 10% chance of failure to all of our actions. 1 Gnosis is a cheap price to delay that, to put it lightly.
I'm not planning on delaying it indefinitely, of course, but we can wait on it for now.
[X] Focus: "Heir" of Slytherin
Step by step.
As for the first, I'm not particularly keen on introducing a 10% chance of failure to all of our actions. 1 Gnosis is a cheap price to delay that, to put it lightly.
I'm not planning on delaying it indefinitely, of course, but we can wait on it for now.
[X] Focus: "Heir" of Slytherin
We need to find the heir fast. I have a theory that it could be Draco. While Harrys astronomy thing said he was not the heir Harry himself gave a possible explanation for how he could be the heir and not be detected. That being because Harry set it to look for friends and Draco currently is not Harrys friend
Looking for the Azkaban prisoner is pointless. We will either be told who he is latter by some one or if they don't know then we will find nothing
Their is no reason to believe we could do something now to fight Death that we could not do latter after the heir is found
[X] Face Them Now
I find it funny knowing our dreams won yet we have been avoiding it ever since we piked it. But we need to face the music now that it has been piked
We need to find the heir fast. I have a theory that it could be Draco. While Harrys astronomy thing said he was not the heir Harry himself gave a possible explanation for how he could be the heir and not be detected. That being because Harry set it to look for friends and Draco currently is not Harrys friend
Looking for the Azkaban prisoner is pointless. We will either be told who he is latter by some one or if they don't know then we will find nothing
Their is no reason to believe we could do something now to fight Death that we could not do latter after the heir is found
[X] Face Them Now
I find it funny knowing our dreams won yet we have been avoiding it ever since we piked it. But we need to face the music now that it has been piked
- Location
- California
[X] Focus: "Heir" of Slytherin
[X] Focus: "Heir" of Slytherin
[X] Face Them Now
Since we're already getting therapy anyways, we're best poised to face them. It might sour the socialization roll though.. Making it difficult for Harry to talk about the dreams, worrying his friends.
Snape is a Potions master.. And presumably a Dark Arts practitioner too and a legilimens. What are the chances he recognises signs of Forgetfulness potion effect and takes an antidote to sort out his memories? This could be fascinating turn of events narratively.. Where he finds out Harry came to help him and used Dark Arts.
[X] Face Them Now
Since we're already getting therapy anyways, we're best poised to face them. It might sour the socialization roll though.. Making it difficult for Harry to talk about the dreams, worrying his friends.
Snape is a Potions master.. And presumably a Dark Arts practitioner too and a legilimens. What are the chances he recognises signs of Forgetfulness potion effect and takes an antidote to sort out his memories? This could be fascinating turn of events narratively.. Where he finds out Harry came to help him and used Dark Arts.
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Lightwavers
Purple Noodle
- Pronouns
- they/them
[X] No Dreams, No Worries
Haha, no thanks.
Haha, no thanks.