Disclaimer: Anything you recognize – be it character, location, idea or line – belongs to others; I may be playing with them but I make no profit from this.
Last time on Let the Games Begin:
They stepped through the majestic doors and their jaws dropped in shock: under a vaulted stone ceiling, as vast as in the cavern where they'd met Ishizu Ishtar, a tropical forest grew, luxuriant and thriving!
The air was heavy with humidity, warm and wet and all the more oppressive after the dry chilliness of the corridors they'd just walked. Gigantic trees, supported by strong, strut-like buttresses at the base of the trunk, grew in the shallow forest soils. Huge creepers looped and twisted through every empty space, twining themselves around the massive trunks of the trees.
And the astounding sight was rendered even more shocking by the fact that it was held inside a dark cave, whose stone walls and ceiling seemed to be under assault by the luxuriant vegetation.
"I think 'unexpected' covers this quite well", commented Potter at last.
"Startling", nodded Granger.
"Astonishing, too", added Longbottom in a helpful tone.
Terry grinned: "Out of the blue, shocking, unforeseen, sudden, staggering…"
"Annoying", griped Malfoy. "You can't tell me they actually expect us to walk through that! I can see from here it's complete mud and I'm not treading in that and the bloody air is getting wetter and wetter by the minute and I'm already this close to suffocate and it'll only be worse under that bloody canopy of weird leaves and I bet there's all sorts of disgusting beasts in there that proper wizards should only interact with when they're already appropriately harvested for Potions ingredients!"
A heartbeat.
Then the four of them burst out into laughter.
"Oh, Merlin, Malfoy, you're really something else!"
As he took deep breaths to get his mirth under control, Terry spotted a slim volume neatly arranged on a thick moss-covered branch, where it bended horizontally at the level of their eyes.
Determinedly, he strode forwards and snatched it up.
Granger was there in an instant, standing on tiptoes to peek over his shoulder: "What's that?"
"The Curse of the Idol, Player's Handbook", he read the title aloud.
"I'm guessing it explains how this Game works?" inquired Potter.
"Amazing… truly phenomenal…" came the muttering voice of Longbottom, completely out of turn.
Looking up, Terry saw the tall boy kneeling on the wet soil, his hands stained with dark, humid earth while he examined the plant-life of the ground layer closely, peering at the roots of the herbaceous shrubs and digging lightly around the trees.
"Neville's found his personal heaven, I suspect", chuckled Potter.
Granger had a fond smile. "Well, you're right about the Game being explained in this booklet, so I think he can play with the plants as much as he likes while we figure out the rules and such."
Potter grimaced. "Well, have fun. No way am I trying to read at your pace. You can give me a recap later; I'll just be over here with Neville! You don't mind, do you, Neville?" he added the last part addressing the kneeling boy directly.
"Huh? Oh, of course, yes, you're right..." Longbottom was clearly off into his own private world. He raised excited eyes on Potter, holding out a ghastly-looking, knobby root: "Isn't this fantastic?" he enthused.
"It's dirty", answered Malfoy acidly.
Terry glanced back and noticed with amusement that the blond hadn't budged from the entryway.
Granger snorted inelegantly, muttering something highly unflattering about 'prissy pureblooded little princes'; Potter told him in an annoyed tone: "Oh, give it a rest, Malfoy!"
"Well excuse me for being refined enough to find it distasteful to play in the mud!" retorted the blond, aggravated. "I'm not going in there", he reiterated stubbornly, crossing his arms petulantly. He would have looked adorable, if he'd been five rather than fifteen.
Potter said, incredulous: "Merlin's pants, Malfoy, are you a wizard or not? Scourgify works wonders on mud stains, you know!"
Malfoy stared at him with such a horrified expression that if he hadn't heard Potter himself, Terry would have thought the Gryffindor had just told him to sacrifice his firstborn to the Prissy God of Cleanliness to get his Spotless Protection against the terrifying attacks of Dirt.
"Are you suggesting I use a household charm?" he breathed, as if the mere mention of the possibility was offensive.
"Huh… yes?" said Potter, clearly not seeing what the big deal was.
"But that's Elf work!" shrieked Malfoy, affronted.
"Oh, really?" spoke up Granger unexpectedly, with such a venomous tone Terry was almost frightened. "Slave labour, I take it you mean!"
Potter and Longbottom moaned and groaned in unison.
Granger ignored them and stalked up to Malfoy, looking remarkably like a sabre-toothed tiger: "Because I don't expect you pay the Elves you force to work for you, do you?"
Malfoy looked torn between being bewildered and mocking: "Paying the House-Elves, Granger? Are you serious?"
Granger stood to her full height, vibrating with righteous anger, and Terry watched in stunned fascination as she launched into a passionate diatribe on House Elves Rights, with a generous side helping of insults against Highly Biased or Inanely Apathetic Wizards Condoning and Colluding in the Oppression of Slaves.
Terry glanced at the other two Gryffindors, who had the long-suffering expression of people who'd heard the speech more times than they cared to remember.
Of course Malfoy, being Malfoy, made a point to retort, none too gently, in order to put the 'uncultured idiot who wouldn't understand their world if someone explained it to her with pictures' in her place; big mistake, seeing as Granger was more than capable to hold her own against the jerk, be it physically, magically, or rhetorically.
It wasn't long before the two had descended into a screaming match.
"Open your ears, you insignificant bint: Elf enslavement goes back centuries! It's part of our traditions! Not that I would expect you to understand the value of our history…"
"The value of history! Well, of course, if you mean a selective history, which glosses over the nastier aspects of our culture…"
"Our culture? Oh, that's a laugh! As if you knew anything about wizarding traditions…"
Potter flopped on his back on the ground, groaning in exasperation; Longbottom shook his head and sagely told Terry that it was 'best to let her get it all out of her system'.
Still rather shell-shocked, Terry nevertheless shrugged and sat gingerly on a nearby log covered in wet moss, starting to read and memorize the Player's Handbook.
Now and then, he could make out part of their vicious argument.
"..and that's why the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, S.P.E.W., is working to stop the outrageous abuse of our fellow magical creatures and campaigning for a change in their legal status and-"
"Spew?" Malfoy was chocking on his laughter.
"S-P-E-W!" cried Hermione hotly.
Terry concentrated on understanding the different goals and requirements of the game. He was rather confused by the constant reference to 'dice throwing', but figured they would understand better as they went.
"…secure House-Elves fair wages, health assistance and good working conditions…"
"…trying to think of when I've heard something more ridiculous than this…"
It seemed they would be competing as a team against a single opponent once more, playing a Squad of Explorers while their adversary would act as Guardian for the Temple…
"…changing the law about non-wand use…"
"You've got to be kidding! Why don't we give out wands to goblins next?"
"Well, why not!"
Terry considered getting up to assist Malfoy, who seemed to be chocking on his own spluttered indignation, but Potter lazily commented that 'the pillock had it coming anyway' and that Terry should think twice before making himself a target for Hermione's crossness. Yes, it was safer to memorize the rules for moving on the Wheels of Death instead – whatever those were.
"…get an elf into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, because they're shockingly underrepresented…"
"They don't need representation! They're slaves, Granger! They wouldn't be able to go against their masters' wishes anyway and you can't expect us to let them go gallivanting off when there's work to do in our manors…"
"Your attitude is completely unacceptable!"
"But. They. Like. It. They like being enslaved!..."
"So that makes it alright?"
Terry wondered how long it would be before they grew tired of arguing and moved on to hexes. He sighed and let his gaze wander over Longbottom, who was carefully inspecting some dark green, leathery leaves which tapered sharply, letting a rivulet of water drain quickly from their surface.
Potter was comfortably laying on the soft, wet ground, absently twirling a brightly coloured stem that Terry was reasonably sure was a bromeliad, an epiphyte of the pineapple family that usually grew directly on trunks and larger branches, as his memory supplied.
The first part of the Game would take them through the rainforest, at least until they managed to locate the Temple; he wasn't sure what to think of this.
Sure it would be interesting, but he couldn't help worrying about what kind of creatures they might find. Animals had never really been an interest of his. He thought a tropical rainforest would likely be home to all kinds of colourful birds and probably monkeys. Predators, possibly, leopards and jaguars and definitely snakes. Lots of insects, too, almost certainly. Good thing he knew three different bug-repelling charms.
What troubled him the most was the possibility of some magical creature he'd never heard of springing on them all of a sudden. They tended to be rather spectacular, and not in the good sense of the term.
He tried to remember what he might have read on the topic. Manticores lived in this kind of habitat, he thought, or, no, wait, they were the hybrids that preferred temperate deserts, but he was sure something really dangerous lived in tropical climates, what could it be? And this looked like a possible territory for man-eating trees, great. He sort of recalled pictures of a sloth-like beast called a Mapinguari, perhaps, and giant crossbreeds between bats and apes he could not remember the name of. Ahools, maybe? At least, if they were bats, sunlight should work against them…
His musings were suddenly interrupted by the brusque transformation of the background noise of the argument into a loud explosion of shouted hexes.
He turned just in time to see a barnacles-covered Malfoy with antlers instead of hair fall to the ground unconscious, Stunned by a severely scratched but otherwise unaffected Granger.
Potter was already checking her over, unfazed by how she was still panting incoherent insults. "Yes, yes, of course you're right…"
Longbottom still had eyes only for the delicate-looking orchid he was cradling gently and – was he crooning to the thing? Whatever.
Terry realized with a sigh that it would be up to him to help the blond. Stifling a grimace, he enervated the Slytherin and briskly reversed the hexes he'd been hit with, completely disregarding his humiliated protests.
Then he straightened and called out: "I think we should start moving."
A/N: 'Il Tesoro del Tempio' (lit. 'The Treasure of the Temple', English vers. 'The Curse of the Idol') is a Ravensburger board game that I absolutely adored as a child. My best friend and I played countless times when we were around eight, with just about everybody we could rope into it. I have reworked the rules slightly to suit my purposes better, but since we came up with many 'variations' – such as playing in teams, or adding side-quests… - back in the days, I've decided the changes are justifiable. The game belongs to the category of 'roll-and-move' games and as such, it is a fairly standard kids games, probably rather tiresome to adults because it depends a lot on 'his majesty the d6', and though it still requires more strategy than a boring Game of the Goose or Snakes and Ladders, a lot of it is ultimately luck-based; its greatest appeal is in the beautiful simulation of the 3D temple, the moving cog-wheels, the extremely detailed board game and the well-arranged exotic atmosphere, as well as in the level of care that went into this 'make-belive' (even the instruction manual was written in the style of an adventurer's journal). That, and it tied well into our living role-playing games of 'Indiana Jones adventures', that we were so fond of back then. So, another opponent, another kind of Game... And this should also give you a hint as to who their next challenger is…