Hello everyone, sorry for the delay. I've been plagued by real-life problems lately. My current plan is to skip most of Rubeus' school life and send him to the inheritance cycle.
I would be happy if you support me on my pa(tre)on account.
Pa(tre)on.com*(/)arcanedruid
23 July 1943
In the morning, after collecting the rest of the camp's belongings, we would continue our journey towards our inheritance. The days after the spider attack were unexpectedly peaceful.
According to Veronica, this was because the spiders were migrating inland for some unknown reason. So they ate everything in their path. Unfortunately, this made us very unsuccessful in gathering magical plants and animals. The attack of the spiders diverted us from our original route, and when we added the time needed for Veronica to recover, the journey to the inheritance took a little longer. Nevertheless, today we would arrive there in half an hour at the latest. Radagian had left us a compass pointing to the heritage site. In this way, we managed to find our way even if we deviated from the original route. The compass also indicated the distance to the heritage.
Originally we could have reached the heritage yesterday, but since we did not know how long it would take to pass the tests inside the heritage and we were very tired, we decided to reach the heritage in the morning and go inside. I looked at Veronica, who was collecting things with me, and she had really scared me a few days ago. The depletion of magical energy was not something to be taken lightly. A magician's energy was directly linked to his life force. If it was depleted excessively, it could damage the life force and even shorten the magician's lifespan. Normally, the magician's body would stop consuming magical energy before things got to this point. Only experienced and skilled magicians could force themselves past this limit. Even though Veronica assured me that she was fine and had suffered no permanent damage, I couldn't help worrying about her.
When we had finished packing and were ready to leave, I heard Veronica's voice.
Veronica said, 'I'll go ahead and check around. Even if some magicians didn't get the inheritance, they might have discovered it.'
When I nodded my head as if indicating my approval, it turned into a snowy owl in front of my eyes. To be honest, she looked no different from a normal owl, except that she was twice the size of a normal snowy owl. Her white feathers covered her body and she looked as if she didn't belong in the dark and gloomy forest. I knew that Veronica's animal form was an owl, but this was the first time I had seen her in this form. Veronica sang one last time and flew away. I got on my Heidel and while steering my own Heidel with one hand, I held the halter of Veronica's Heidel with the other hand and slowly started to make my way towards the heritage.
After about 5 minutes Veronica came back. She descended from the sky and turned into a human right in front of me. I'm not gonna lie. It was an impressive sight.
Veronica said, 'There are no signs of life in front of us and in the possible location of the legacy. For at least a week. No-one's been here.'
Then she got into her heidel and we were off at top speed, both of us no doubt wanting this to be over as soon as possible.
After 15 minutes we entered a clearing with a hill in the centre. At the top of the hill was a single large tree. One side of the hill rose with a gentle slope while the other side descended as steeply as possible. Vines were coming down the steep side and the faint outline of a cave could be seen. The compass was pointing directly at the cave.
Rubeus said, 'I can't think of a more appropriate place to hide a legacy.' I said this sarcastically.
Veronica smiled a little and said, 'It's a Radagian place. What are you gonna do?'
Rubeus said, 'I'm going in, of course. We've wasted enough time in this cursed forest.'
After that little speech, we got off our heidels and Veronica immediately started setting up barracks around the clearing. I prepared the magic tent and other things.
When we were finally done and the camp was set up where Veronica would be waiting for me, I headed towards the cave to get the inheritance.
Rubeus, 'Wish me luck.'
Veronica 'Don't die, I'm sure it will be hard to find a new druid.'
I entered the cave with a staff in one hand and a compass in the other. As I cast lumos to illuminate the interior, several runes well hidden on the wall lit up. I felt a wave of energy emanating from the runes and scanning my body and the compass in my hand. A moment later, the ground below me disappeared and I fell downwards.
The fall hurt me. However, I realised I didn't have time to stay on the ground, so I stood up and drew my staff.
'Lumos' The tip of my wand lit up for a moment and then went out. Frowning, I tried again. 'lumos, lumos, lumos.' Unfortunately, it didn't work. I realised that Radagian had bewitched this place so that no light could be lit. Radagian, I hate you.
I took a deep breath and started casting some spells to sense my surroundings. Some worked and some didn't. After a moment I discovered that I could only use druid spells.
I took a deep breath and lit a small fire at the end of my wand. Then I used the wild rage spell to heighten my senses. This spell was becoming my favourite.
Considering that there was a wall behind me, there was only one direction I could go in this damned corridor.
I started walking in that direction, taking slow and careful steps, knowing that Radagian probably didn't set any deadly traps, but it wasn't worth the risk.
I had been walking in the corridor cursed by Merlin for 20 minutes and nothing happened, the corridor seemed to go on for eternity without changing. One minute eternity? Oh yeah, how did I forget that trick.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused on voxnaturae. While expanding my senses with voxnaturae, I was looking for an anomaly in the flow of natural energy around me. Logically, Radagian would not set an infinity trap here. Because it would be impossible for a young magician to break such a thing. In that case, he should have used a simpler alternative. Considering that I could only use druid spells, the process became much simpler. Because the number of druid spells that affected space was very low, and almost all of them were high-level spells. I couldn't help smiling at what I felt.
Rubeus 'May I know your senior name, I think I passed the test.'
I continued to send this message to the being I sensed with Voxnaturae.
'That's enough young druid I can understand human speech, I can even speak it.'
The next moment the corridor around me was like a glass
as if it were breaking apart. A corridor quite similar to the old one, but shorter. In front of me stood a snake that seemed to be barely bigger than my arm. Its scales were black, with some silvery patterns on them that looked like ancient runes.
Merlin, a magical beast that could speak was very rare. Even if High Level magical beasts were intelligent, very few of them could speak directly. With Voxnaturae, communicating with them revolved more around sensing their intentions and letting them sense mine than talking.
'My name is Silverscale, are you the heir of Radagian?'
I bowed slightly. 'Yes, Silverscale, I am Radagian's heir.
Silverscale said, 'It's been a long time. Longer than Radagian and I agreed.'
Rubeus said, 'Radagian died a long time ago. I have found his legacy and am learning from a portrait of him. The portrait did not know the difficulties I would face during the inheritance test. If there is anything I can do to help, I would be happy to help.'
Silverscale looked thoughtful for a moment. Then it spoke. 'Our kind has always been skilled in space-related magic. That is why we have always been hunted by magic users. Radagian saved me and a few other friends from a mad alchemist. We made a deal with him. In exchange for protecting our heritage, he would take our kind to a new world where we would no longer be hunted. So much time has passed that I am the only one of my kind left. You are very lucky, young druid, if it were not for me, my descendants would have eaten you.'
Inheritance trials are supposed to be safe. Safe my arse. Damn you, Radagian.
Rubeus 'I am aware of the world Radagian speaks of and I am prepared to honour his promise.
Silverscale 'Then follow me, young druid.' With those words, some snakes came out of the walls. I hadn't felt them until now, though it probably makes sense that more than one snake would have to work together to do something like the endless corridor trap I just described.
As I followed Silverpul, I realised I hadn't introduced myself yet. 'Senior, by the way, my name is Rubeus Hagrid. Pleased to meet you.'
Silverscale didn't even bother to look at me as he replied, 'I see, young druid.'
Rubeus 'You can call me Rubeus or Hagrid.'
Silverscale 'I understand, young druid.'
By now I was sure one of the veins in my forehead was pulsing angrily, damn snake.
After continuing down the corridors for a while, we came to a door. Silverpul straightened up as straight as a snake could straighten up. Immediately afterwards, the door began to open slowly.
Silverscale said, 'This is as far as we can go. The rest is your journey.'
I turned and looked at Silverpul, then I saw him nodding as if telling me to go in. I took a deep breath. I went through the door. I wonder what was waiting for me this time.
When I went in, it was pitch black at first. With the closing of the door behind me, the lights came on. A moment later, there was a garden, a cauldron and a few tables. There was also a marble pedestal in front of all of them. There were various magical plants in the garden, but I couldn't help feeling something was wrong with the garden. Something was terribly wrong in the garden. At first glance, I could see that the cauldron and the various tools on the tables were for preparing potions. When I came to the marble pedestal, I realised that the inside of the pedestal formed a pool and the pool was half full. A single sentence was written on the pedestal: 'Fill the pool.' The message was clear.
First I was to identify the potion in the marble pool, then I was to collect the necessary ingredients from the garden and prepare the potion, then I was to fill the pool and pass this test. I turned around and took a bottle from the table and filled some potion from the pool. Then I started trying to identify the potion. It didn't take long. It was a modified wiggenweld potion. When I returned to the garden and started to gather the ingredients, I encountered my first real problem. Some of the ingredients were fake. Or rather, they had been altered to resemble a different plant. So I had to use voxnaturae to distinguish the real ones from the fakes. This made things a bit more difficult, but it wasn't a big deal.
After a while, I gathered all the ingredients and checked the ingredients again before starting to prepare the potion. After taking a deep breath, I found myself preparing the potion with the guidance of voxnaturae. It took about half an hour, but I finally succeeded. Taking a deep breath, I started to fill the potion in the cauldron into the pool. When the pool was full, the pedestal began to descend towards the ground. When the pedestal completely sank to the ground, the door in front of me began to open.
I didn't go through the door right away. Radagian's portrait had told me that the number of tests in the legacy was probably related to magic numbers. So there was at least one more test. I wanted to rest before seeing the next test.
As soon as I decided that I had rested enough, I walked through the door and there in the middle of a huge room was a cube about 2mx2mx2m. At first glance it looked like a muggle brain cube, except that it had runes instead of colours on its various surfaces. When I approached the marble pedestal where the cube was located, there was a single sentence as in the previous test. 'Solve the cube.'
I was familiar with this kind of magic puzzles. They were made to help people control magical energy. They could only move it by using magical energy. Knowing Radagian, I wouldn't be surprised if he made it a little more difficult. After a moment's pause, I reached for the cube with my magical energy and then realised the first difficulty, I had to use not only magical energy but also natural energy. It made sense when I thought about it. The first test tested my ability to sense and communicate with magical creatures with voxnaturae. The second test tested my ability to recognise magical plants and make potions. The third and presumably final test was on the control of magic and natural energy, which almost directly tested my ability to use druidic magic. Unfortunately, all this did not make me enjoy this test. To continue solving the cube, sometimes I had to use only magical energy, sometimes I had to use both, and sometimes I had to use only natural energy. Not to mention the difficulty of a normal intelligence cube. Anyway, even though it was difficult, I was able to solve the cube at the end of 4 hours. With the last turn of the rows of the cube, the marble base and the cube began to descend and enter the ground, and at the same time, the part behind the large hall began to open. When I saw the back of the door, I had only one thought in my mind. Bye bye poverty.