Chapter 4: Taking the Right Road

It has been one week since his "ascension" – it was the term he had heard the Others use to describe their own condition and what has happened to him. To him it felt more like "awakening" to the truth of the universe.

As he had been crossing the domain of the Others he had also heard them about wanting to stop him and force him back. Fortunately his trajectory had led him straight into the "Dark region" a place which they considered a black hole for the beings of their kind. He had gone where the Others were too afraid to explore, and he had seen complete truth of the universe.

He had understanding of how the universe worked, but was neither the maker, nor did he know in what direction it was supposed to evolve and his place in it. He was not beyond making bad choices which could lead to disastrous, irreparable outcomes, even to himself.

That's why he had spent that time exploring his powers and thinking about the possibilities.

After defeat of the Great Goblin Rebellion, two ideologies had emerged among Goblins. Gringott wanted to adopt a more business-like way of life, his tribe was solely composed of Goblins, but outsider could still treat with them and make business deals. They had also accepted to become bankers of Wizard society. Grunning on the other hand wanted to remain Goblin-warrior. His tribe did not contain only Goblins or pure Goblins for that matter, as he had been practicing taking a wife for his harem whenever he had met a worthy opponent, no matter what had been the species of that opponent. If one wanted to treat with the Grunning clan, that person had to be ready for the possibility of the trial by combat.

Grunning had therefore started the Great Goblin Migration in order to find Promised Land where his tribe could be hidden from Wizards. He had managed to find it quickly as he had decided to settle his tribe at Little Whinging.

The Dursley tribe of Little Whinging were in a pinch of their own. Because of the curse they were completely isolated (or with very sporadic exchanges), and were missing sufficient numbers and knowledge for a self-sustained existence. They were praying to Thor for some miracle. When Grunning had arrived with his tribe of Goblins, Vampires, Shape shifters, etc. and all sorts of half-breeds, it had triggered conversion of the Dursleys to Christianity, but they had little choice but to accept the newcomers.

Following deal had been struck between the Dursleys and Grunning:

There will be a wall around the new settlement (Stonewall) to protect and separate the honest and decent people of Little Whinging from the freaks.

Dietary needs of some among Grunning's tribe implied the need for human presence in Stonewall. All humans on the lands of Little Whinging, if judged unworthy by the Dursley clan, would be sent to Stonewall; volunteers had also been accepted.

That's how all the truly decent people of Little Whinging ended living in Stonewall.

Goblins had treated humans as a precious resource, which is actually how Goblins treat everyone and everything (otherwise they don't waste their time on things without value). This also meant that if a vampire was in need of special blood type to cure a nasty illness of a family member, he could get permission from the tribe's chief to take that blood, and that meant trial by combat to decide who would go with the blood, the human or the vampire.

That was the first rule of Stonewall: "The right to live (or any right for that matter) is not implied or given, it is earned because the living being fights to stay alive and is strong enough to remain victorious in that endeavour."

He was also now seeing the story about the snake and the apple in new light. The power to see good and evil, the power of choice had been a gift, albeit a poisoned one. He had to be careful not take that right. He also had to avoid to be seen as easy solution to ones problems. He also wanted to keep his existence hidden from the Others.

In Wizard community, Voldemort was actively looking to become corporeal again. On a galactic scale the list of beings and species interested in absolute domination was quite an imposing one.

Above all, he was simply hoping the humanity had what it takes to prosper on their own.

He needed help to remain in shadows as much as possible, and was now in the perfect place to get that help. All bad guys, foreign and domestic, were about to get their plans seriously ruined.

Setting his signature to 100% human, done. Going to Stonewall human settlement (the surface), done. Getting through air-conditioning system inside the Stonewall underground city, done. Letting himself get detected by Goblin security, done. Going to the central elevator, done. Pressing the keys of the super-secret-known-only-to-Goblin-elite codes to descend to the Emerald fields and the Amethyst megacity, done. Get the Goblin security to enrich their language with new swearing-words, done.

The human settlement on the surface was in every sense the tip of the ice-berg. 2 mile x 2 mile town where humans lived was the top of a network of tunnels which had 100 m in diameter and were stretching radially for miles and miles in every direction around the main elevator shaft that went for 10 miles deep underground and which was the Stonewall underground city.

Stonewall had been administration and business part, and also part which tourists were allowed to see. Below Stonewall had been another network of tunnels called "the Zone" – maze through which roamed all sorts of monsters and which contained many deadly devices. The Zone protected "the Forbidden City" of the Goblins located inside Earth's mantle: the Emerald fields and the Amethyst megacity. The Emerald fields were gigantic emerald geodes created by Goblins to transform energy from Earth's mantle into light and heat used for agriculture. The Amethyst megacity was amethyst geode so huge it contained an entire metropolis of about 50'000'000 people.

In about a moment, Harry would become the first human ever to have entered the metropolis and would face very angry Goblin security. He hoped they wouldn't outright refuse his cooperation proposal and would be open to the idea of developing a space program.