It was but the work of a moment to appear inside the Ministry, completely invisible. Funny thing about invisibility. Most assume it just prevents the average human with the old mark one eyeball from beholding your person, allowing light to pass through your form as if you weren't there.
As time went on, many theorized how such a thing might work and came up with all kinds of explanations and possibilities to cover for it, from camera trickery to camouflage to simple scientific explanations involving the bending of light around an object. Such things are great and resulted in the advent of the cloak, but in a strange reversal, some of these ideas and the holes they have that would allow for circumventing them have trickled back and infected the concept of invisilibity in general.
Even the Death Cloak, something that by rights should hide you from death itself, is relegated to a simple light bending trick by effect, even if it is far more effective than other methods of invisibility in this magical world.
It makes me rather glad for my invisibility perk and my full control of it. Even before I came here, I would say it was one of my favorite perks as it enacted true invisibility, blocking any form of detection available, provided I did not get splattered with stains or disrupt the cloak with magic use. Sight? Any form of electromagnetic radiation was prevented from passing or interacting with my person. Smell? Any particles that could drift from my body and be detected by another's nose are blocked from leaving my person. Sound? Taste? Touch? My body does not interact with the surrounding air or any form of gas, nor does it interact with anything else either. I could bump into a wall or even a person and they would never notice as any interaction would be blocked, provided it was not my intention to interact, like with say, a boot to the head.
True invisibility. It was one of my favorite perks. Sadly, I usually had to go without, as while it was useful, it did have one downside.
I couldn't turn it off.
Now though, with full control of the ability available, I could not only turn it off and on again, I could even extend the field of effect to cover not just myself, but anything I came into contact with. No more disruption of the invisibility via stains floating in the air and drawing notice and suspicion. I could just extend the effect and include the stain itself. Not that I had to worry about that any longer thanks to the new magic I have access to. The impervious spell is a wonderful wonderful thing. Nothing can touch or cling to me now, if I do not allow it. God bless Mr. Abernathy. I'd have to do something very nice for that man. But then again, he was paid for his time with obscene amounts of gold, so perhaps it's fine.
In that same way, interacting with objects no longer interrupted my invisibility either. I could simply extend the field to turn that object invisible too. Though this was more effective with small objects and less so with doors. But that's where the notice-me-not came in. It's not perfect, but it is strong enough to allow for me to not be noticed, provided I'm careful.
In this way, I made my trip down to the bottom floor of the Ministry. With it being so early in the morning, there were very few people around for me to worry about, and soon I had gotten down to the entrance of the Department of Mysteries.
As expected, it has a detection ward, plus a ward on the door to detect when it's opened and closed. The one for detection is no problem, but I can't bypass the other as it's tied to a bunch of other requirement type ward strings that'll set off other stuff, at least as far as I can tell. It's actually the most complex ward I've seen yet, which makes sense considering where I am.
I could just push through it fairly easily and take the whole thing down, but the point is to avoid detection entirely if possible. So instead of trying to circumvent the ward, I decided to bypass it completely by equipping what I call my swap wand. It's the same wand I've used previously for firing healing bolts and is my most versatile as I use it to swap out spells for various effects as needed, hence the name. I quickly load it with a phase arc and short teleport bolt. Firing it causes the bolt to phase out of existence, essentially teleporting forward effectively, and then triggering on the other side of the door. And just like that, I'm inside.
Granted, firing the magic disrupted my invisibility, but it didn't stop me from deflecting the detection wards with my magic, and with no one on the other side, I only had to wait a moment for the invisibility to re-activate and I could continue forward.
I now found myself in a room with twelve doors all equally spaced from each other, with the walls being a 12 sided geometric shape that I'm pretty sure I don't know the name of. I don't have much time to look around though, and I levitate up to the ceiling and hovered there.
About half a minute later, two mages in black robes with deep hoods walked inside, quietly conversing with each other. Once they'd stepped in, the door behind them closed, and they continued their slow walk forward, ignoring everything else as the magic of the room suddenly became a whirling maelstrom but the room itself didn't move, to my surprise.
Likewise, the two conversing mages, whom I assume are Unspeakables, don't seem to react to anything, and I notice, that while the magic flows around me, it seemingly touches their robes and then moves on. By the time they reach the door I'd bypassed to enter, the magic had settled and they went through.
Once they were through and closed the door, the magic became like a hurricane again, with me in the eye, and I watched with fascination as it flew about the room before settling. I'm guessing that the spinning I was expecting was an illusion that I ended up bypassing, and I could detect some spells on each door that had something to do with space warping, but hadn't been triggered.
Focusing on my all-sight, I looked past the doors, searching specifically for the room full of time turners. I quickly found it, but couldn't help but peak into the others for at least a few moments. There is the prophecy room as I expected, with space warping being used to expand the room to a great degree. I memorized the magic for my own later use and moved on.
I recognized a few other rooms, one with a giant planetarium floating above the floor, another with a tank full of tentacle brains and other things in jars that looked fairly digusting. Yet another room was white with pink lighting with vials along the walls, lots of papers, a fountain full of sparkling pink fluid. I didn't recognize it, but it looked interesting. Yet another room had an absolutely massive library and another seemed to be some sort of lab with various devices along the walls, some of which appeared to be technological in nature.
Yet another room was something of an amphitheater with the Death Arch at the bottom. I took a moment to analyze the magic from it from here. It reminded me slightly of the white portal HE taught me, but only slightly. Whatever it is, I think it might be broken? I'm not positive though. With the way it currently works, I'm fairly sure I could emulate it and end up not only atomizing something like the vanishing spell, but also end up scattering the remains across time and space. I'm not sure why I would ever want to do that though, but it's an option I have now.
I can tell there are other rooms, but they don't seem to be accessible from here. Maybe. The space warping on the doors that are currently inactive might change that, but I don't need access to them. I just need into the time changer for a time turner.
Or do I? Like with the Death Arch, I probed the magic of several of the time turners from here, and felt my eyebrows rise and I might have whistled had I not stopped myself.
From the outside, the time turners appeared to be of all sorts of shapes and sizes, inscribed with runes and almost always in the form of some type of necklace, with an hourglass sitting prominently in the center, each with a bit of crystal sand inside. There was also an enclosed case in the room with a bird that had a time turner around its neck that seemed to be in a constant loop, that could be observed from the outside.
From a magic standpoint though, the time turners were almost ludicrously complex, even if they were beautiful to behold. It's actually somewhat hard to describe. Like fractal patterns twisting on itself in directions that weren't really directions, causing parts of the magic to seemingly overlap and restart. And stranger still, each time turner seemed to appear just a bit different from the others.
This is just their base state though. More important is the bird, or namely the time turner that's being constantly activated over and over. The dome itself is almost a mind twist, but appears to be singularly designed to counter the effects of the time turner inside and keep it from affecting the exterior, thus creating a stable visible bubble of time out of sync with our own. Already I can see possibilities of perhaps using it on a glass to allow for seeing into the past or future without actually going there.
But I digress, the activating of the time turner inside is the important part since it actually lets me feel how the magic works. There seems to be an effect that causes the time turner to flip as soon as the bird finishes travelling back, which triggers the time turner and sends the bird back to where it came from. From a time perspective it's very odd trying to understand it, but from a visual perspective, you just get a bird that keeps appearing, trying to fly away, and then disappearing, only to reappear and fly away again in the exact same way, rinse, repeat.
There also seems to be something limiting the effect. It's hard to say what exactly it is though without going under the effects of the time turner myself though. Not that I need an actual time turner to do that now as I can just replicate the effects on the bird myself, and without the actual time turner, the bit that would spin the device can't actually do anything.
So, having gotten what I came for, I made my way back out of the Department of Mysteries and then the Ministry itself and flew up into the sky of London to just see the light of dawn peek over the horizon. Smiling at the sight, I then cast my senses out, making sure to observe everything as I then activated the magic effect of the Time Turner.
What I saw next… was hard to describe. Visually, it was like time sped up for a moment, before I more felt than heard the sound of something breaking and the world came to a stop. Then it began to reverse, going faster and faster until it stopped, and I felt what could only be the breaking sound in reverse, and everything below me resuming time the way it was before.
Magically though, I can't put it into words so I won't even try. I can at least describe the effect though. For just a moment, I stepped out of the stream of time and existed within my own bubble of it like the bird in the dome. It visually allowed me to see what I did regarding the world, but magically I saw time from an external perspective.
To describe it visually, it was like a stream of spaghetti, twisting and turning like threads full of split ends, which continued on themselves winding further and further and splitting more and more and sometimes creating loops back into itself for a moment then breaking and reflowing in and out and all around itself until what you were left with was a never ending wriggling shape that had no beginning or end.
I had to take a few minutes just to process it all.
After I'd come to terms with it a little, I shook my head slowly. I think if I tried again, I could likely fuel the effect with my own magic to keep myself out of the time stream long enough to insert myself just about anywhere. It would normally be fairly easy to get lost, but for one little detail…
Turning my head, I turned my attention to the far distance where I could feel my magic being used by a facsimile of my past self.
If what I'm understanding of what I'm observing is correct, then I think I'm exempt from being seen by myself. Why? Because the me in the distance isn't past me, it's a shadow of me. A time shadow, doing the things I did. Everyone else would see it as me, but it's not actually me. I'm me. Evidently there can only be one of me at any given time, but my magic is infinite and can be anywhere and anywhen. Which will be useful as it will serve as markers allowing me to see where and when I've been within the time stream.
Not for the first time, I had to lift my amulet from my chest and look down at it and ponder the nature of my own being. The bright red gem seemed to sparkle at me. I snorted in amusement and let it drop once more back to my chest. Time. I seem to have become immune to it in more ways than one.
With a deep fortifying breath, I closed my eyes and breathed it out slowly. Then I opened my eyes once more and with a twist of my magic, stepped outside of the time stream once again.
Once there, I looked about for the mark my magic left on the timestream and noted its place from where I left. I then turned my gaze further up the current strand until I found what I can only describe as a ghost of what could be, sitting at a split in the strand.
Willing myself there, I stepped back into the timestream.
The first thing I noted was an utter absence of London. No human habitation or building whatsoever.
What I found instead were trees surrounding a slightly different looking version of the river that normally runs through London. Aside from trees, of which there were a lot, past them the trees eventually turned to grassland and rolling hills.
Raising myself up, it took me a bit before I finally spotted some civilization in the far distance. Looks like a few settlements surrounded by walls of piled rock and fairly rough looking moats. Some were far to the north, while I did see one or two to the south of the river, also in the far distance.
Now why isn't this area settled, I had to wonder. Was it the trees? You'd think clearing them out and building on the coast of a river would be beneficial, as rivers give a natural food and water boost to early settlements. But then, if the surrounding settlements were enemies… That might go a ways towards explaining it.
But what of the goblins? And why did I detect a shadow of my magic here in the time stream?
Floating back down, I began to look around. I started at roughly where I think modern Gringotts would be and not even a minute later found something of a mound. I'd call it a hill, except it seems, unnatural. Like an anthill, only with crack like openings in the sides rather than a tunnel in the top.
Around this mound, I found something else that in hindsight I should have expected. Human remains. Skulls on sticks. Bits of patched fur clothing. I can't say I'm surprised. This goes further to explain the lack of human settlement than anything else really.
Sighing slightly to myself at the irony, I found myself once again descending into a hole leading underground filled with creatures that would likely want to kill me. How nostalgic.
I didn't bother using More Love or Invisibility. I wanted to know the natural state of these Goblins. And find out I did.
The first few were… shocking. Little better than animals with loincloths and sticks. Clubs, stones, sharpened bits of rock, you name it, they came at me swinging or throwing it. Attempts to communicate did nothing.
So, in order to get their attention, I pulled out a wand and started shooting. To my surprise and slight disgust, that didn't slow them down at all. If anything, they seemed to get excited, in an angry way, and came at me with an even greater intent to harm. The blood lust is strong in these creatures. Where the hell is the cunning and guile of the modern Goblins?! Compared to them, these things are little more than savages!
It almost felt like falling into an old routine. I fired my wand over and over, mowing down these creatures. I didn't even have to use anything beyond a basic spark bolt. Their only method of threatening me seemed to be overwhelming numbers, and since it only took a single shot to kill one, and I could fire sixty shots a second… It was a blood bath.
I went deeper and deeper into the mound, finding caverns and tunnels, some of which wouldn't fit me so I had to use nolla blackholes to dig my way through. I searched high and low, wiping out the blood thirsty suicidal nitwits. It took what felt like hours. The numbers were such that I stepped over bodies more often than not, most of which had been pulped as the majority of their bodies had formed into blood gold, some of which disappeared into my gold counter as my robes brushed them. Mostly I ignored them though. What would I do with more gold when I already have an infinite amount of the stuff?
It felt like ages before I came across something that gave me pause. A slightly younger smaller goblin was poking at a chunk of blood gold. Normally this would not interest me, but this was literally the first goblin I've seen who didn't immediately react to my presence by running at me in order to perform assisted suicide, though that may be because it hadn't noticed me yet.
When it finally did, I ended up actually raising an eyebrow when, instead of immediately attempting to leap at me or some other foolhardy thing, it actually expressed fear and took off down the tunnels.
Intrigued, I tagged it with my magic and began to follow it. I still ran into goblins that attempted to kill me, but the one I was following was still running away.
It lead me on a hell of a chase. And it wasn't the only one to run either. Maybe one in every thousand or so ran away rather than attack me on sight. I tagged them all, following them with my magic senses and noted that the majority of them seemed to have met up and were helping each other to escape from me. Curiouser and curiouser.
Eventually, I'd reached a point where I felt I'd torn open the entirety of the mound. I was careful to make sure none of the Goblins I'd marked were able to get past me to the surface, and I eventually cornered the lot.
I'd guess there were only about fifty or so left, maybe a bit more, but only a small handful were willing to seemingly defend the ones cowering behind them, spreading their arms and using their body's as shields.
Watching them for a bit, I considered what to do. Obviously some Goblins would have to survive here as there were still Goblins here in the future… assuming those Goblins didn't just come in from somewhere else, but all things considered… I find that unlikely.
In a strange twist, I actually feel a bit better about the Goblins before my jaunt through time now. Compared to the nuts I'd just stamped out, that lot is practically moderate and well civilized by comparison. Now how am I supposed to get to that point with this lot!?
"What am I to do with you?" I sighed, mumbling to myself.
As the impasse continued and I still remained non threatening, wand pointed at the ground, some of the Goblins began to regard me with the slightest bit of curiosity beyond their fear. Surprisingly though there's no real sense of hate and certainly no eager savagery like the others. That's not to say its not there, but it seems this bunch is slightly smarter than the rest if for nothing else than having a much better survival instinct.
Sighing, I realized that if I wasn't just going to kill this lot, then there was only one thing I could really do at this point. I began forming and casting magic wandlessly, keeping the effects invisible so as to not spook them.
As for what I cast? I started weaving the spells I had felt on the modern Goblins that moderated their behavior. As I did so, I notice some of the Goblins begin to look confused and look around, their eyes focusing a bit more. This happened more and more often as I cast more of the magic until I felt I'd covered everything that didn't feel like it came from an English treaty? How could I tell? I couldn't, beyond that some of the magic felt newer yet less complex.
It took me a moment before I realized this was the shadow of my magic that I'd detected, now made manifest. Before it was just a shadow made by possibility, not unlike the shadow of myself I'd observed with the Dementor when I'd gone back five hours, but now it was clear. The magic I'd just put on them was magic I'd put on them in the first place, closing something of a time loop and establishing that branch off I saw when I first came in to this section of the timeline.
What followed next was the most awkward game of charades I've ever been a part of. I'd like to think I established something of a rapport with them, but honestly they were just afraid of me still. I think I communicated wanting them to lay low and hopefully leave the humans alone. They didn't actually need anything from the surface, being fully capable of surviving and eating from the plants, roots, and other things in the subterranean dark.
I did my best to teach them a bit of culture, like numbers and language. Drawing numbers in the dirt made a little sense to them, but English was a no go. They could sort of imitate the sounds, but it sounded like just a bunch of gobbledygook to me. Poor imitation of the sounds from my mouth. About the only thing I could actually get them to say with any clarity at all was 'Noita'. Go figure.
Eventually I felt I'd done all I could. I didn't sense any more shadows of my magic at this point, and short of staying here to lead them, there wasn't much else I could do. I also ended up leaving all the blood gold. They did say they'd had a source of it and I honestly didn't need it so it was no loss to let them have it. The only two things of note before I left that time period was that I collapsed the mound for the most part, making it more hidden and cleaning up the exterior of bones and such, and one of them, after pushing a chunk of blood gold towards them, offered me a red stone jammed into the end of a stick. The red stone was red due to being a crystal as much as having been soaked in the blood of what felt like many goblins, making it have a distinct magical feel, but didn't actually have any kind of spell pattern or anything in it. Just a small store of mana distinctly Goblin flavored. I figure if nothing else I'll take it back to the present and give it back to the goblins there. I really have no need of it beyond that and maybe they'll appreciate a bit of their own history.