Howdy ya'll. Yes, I'm originally from the South, so I can, in fact, say that. Anywho, here's the next installment. Also, have any of you played Shadow of the Tomb Raider?

No spoilers, but it's SO DAMNED GOOD! I'm about three quarters of the way through, I'm taking my time because I'm a completionist, so I'm trying to get 100% my first time through, and I'm not looking for walkthroughs, so don't even suggest it.

Now, on to reviews, I'll say this: I'm not putting POV titles at the top of my chapters/the various POV changes in chapters, if there are any. If you've read any adult novels, you'll have noticed that POV changes don't have "So-and-so's POV" with every POV change. If you're having that hard of a time keeping up with whose POV the chapter/section is, then you might be too young to be reading an M-rated story. Just saying.

To Guest: Animagus form, you'll find out. Sam's not dying. She doesn't die in the game or comics, so unless my muse decides to completely fuck everything, Sam's not dying. And I'll probably just continue with this one story, not make it into a series of stories.

To Hadrian le fay: Don't go spoiling things! And you're wrong about the Animagus form.s

Other than that, I got nothing, so just enjoy the chapter!

I jerked awake, my perimeter wards alerting me to the fact that there were hostile humans boarding the Endurance. Looking down, I realized that Lara's head was resting on my chest, and she was drooling on me. A minor levitation charm allowed me to rise before I allowed her to slump onto the couch, a drying spell taking care of the wet on my shirt, and a cleaning charm getting rid of the residue allowing me to look around.

Only Grim was awake, and he was eyeing me carefully.

"Hostiles just boarded the ship." I said quietly. "I'll not be long, taking care of them."

He nodded, and I summoned a dragonhide cloak from my room, throwing it about my shoulders before I stalked up and out of my suit case.

"Where's the bodies?" I heard just outside of my assigned room on the Endurance. "Every ship has at least ten bodies of people that never got off before the storms slam it into the island."

It was rough, deep, and definitely had a Russian accent. I wondered why he was speaking English, when I heard an Aussie accented voice respond.

"I dunno, but what I want to know is where all the supplies are." The apparent Aussie sounded aggravated, and I smirked to myself, knowing that all those supplies were exactly in their proper places, just put under a limited aversion ward keyed to anyone not of the Endurance.

"Any sign of people or supplies?" A third voice questioned, this one sounding American.

"No."

"Nothing."

"Damn." The American cursed. "Like a fuckin' ghost ship."

Figuring I had enough waiting, I erected a silencing ward around myself and the three men, before transfiguring the floor beneath their feet to tar. That didn't alert them to their impending doom, but then I came around the corner and put a high powered piercing curse directly into each of their foreheads, faint squelching sounds the only result of the silently cast, wandless curses.

Working quickly, I levitated them out of the tar, transfigured it back into the metal deck, divested the men of their weaponry and any currency of any kind they had, and then transfigured the men into stones that I dropped into my cloak's pocket. Their weapons I dropped into Hagrid's moleskin pouch around my neck after shrinking them to fit through the opening, and knew that if all the men on the ship had weaponry, I'd have to rework the extension charm on it to allow for more storage space. It was already quite full.

Disillusioning myself, I applied scent erasing and sound muffling charms to myself and my boots respectively, and then carefully stalked down the corridor. The men seemed to mostly travel in twos and threes, and after I'd killed three dozen men and pocketed three dozen stones, the men I started encountering were particularly edgy, noticing that patrols and workers weren't showing up when they were supposed to. Those ones had itchy trigger fingers on rifles and shotguns, nocked arrows on bows, and pulled katanas and machettes out of their sheathes before I got to them.

It didn't help them at all.

I was coming up the final ladder well to the deck of the Endurance when I paused to listen.

"Father Mathias!" I heard a Russian accented man exclaim. "Something's wrong! All the men are disappearing on this ship, and there's no crew or supplies on board! And nobody has washed up on shore on the island since the last ship was wrecked here."

"I see."

I felt my lip curl as this "Father" Mathias's voice poured grease down my neck, as if someone had taken the grease of Snape's hair, and made it into an audible thing. Judging by the way the other man deferred to him, he must be the one in charge of this operation to steal our stuff. I'd have to take him prisoner and get him to point us towards the leader of this cult.

"Lumos solem." I incanted quietly, stepping out of the ladder well, shutting my eyes and covering them with my left hand, while my right hand threw out a highly over powered Solar Light Charm. I followed it with a highly over powered Cannon Blast Charm a split second later, using magic to muffle the sound to my own ears, and then I looked up after my makeshift flash-bang went off, and magicked weapons and currency off all the men before stunning them all.

I walked to one man, rolled him over, and dove into his mind.

When I came out about a half hour later, I sent a piercing curse into the man's head in disgust.

Apparently, Father Mathias was the cult leader, and there were over five hundred men on this island, guarding important sites and relics all over it. One of those things being the body of an ancient priestess that contained Himiko's soul. Walking around to all the other thugs, I put piercing curses in all of their heads, transfigured them into stones, and dropped them in my pocket. I left Mathias alone, but mostly because I only wanted to keep him alive. The number of young women who had been burned at the stake just since the thug I'd interrogated had been here was staggering. And sickening.

But even more sickening, was the process of dehumanization and desensitization that Mathias put all the men through. Forced cannibalism, passive-aggressive murder of anyone who didn't fall in with Mathias's plans and cult… It was sickening.

Casting an Incarcerous on the man, I transfigured the constricting rope into constricting chains midway through the conjuring, before casting a levicorpus. I left him in place, and began making my way back through the ship to my suit case.

'It's going to be a long expedition.' I thought to myself.

And that's all folks! Another short one, I'm sorry, but we'll start getting meatier chapters soon, don't you worry! Review please!