The Arcanist: Unspeakable Mysteries

by Mr.Omega573

The largest threat to the Statute of Secrecy was not the wizards being found, it was the beings that went bump in the night that would drive you mad at a glance, the demons, the things that you can never unknow. So the Ministry made it all Unspeakable. Magic is Might. Mentor!Albus, Master of Death, Gods, Demons, Alternate Universe. D&D meets HP in a way you didn't know you needed

19. Under the Moon of Eternal Night (23,011)

19. Under the Moon of Eternal Night (23011)

Albus stood outside the door of the last child he had to return.

It was coincidentally the snow leopard cub whose blood had been used to free all of the other children. The other children's parents had mixed reactions, shock, tears, disbelief, joy, but all of them were nothing if not grateful for Albus and Rath'gar's interference, going as far as proclaiming him the true Lord of Yuletide, something that Albus was unsure of how to handle. Especially as he had felt a trickle of power from their proclamation.

As he undid the transfiguration on the last child, he rapped his knuckles on the door of the house. His eyes narrowed as the door swung open, glancing at Rath'gar who with a nod, pulled out Crimson Dawn. Albus stepped into the house, his senses stretched outward. He heard it before he saw it, a dripping noise.

The elder wand materialized in his hand as he strode forward, the warmth of the house feeling refreshing after the time he had spent in the chilled air.

Striding forward, Albus walked into the main sitting area of the house to find the mother suspended from the rafters upside down, blood soaking her beautiful white fur. Rushing over to her, an absent-minded cutting spell freed her from the rafters, her body slowly lowering to the ground with no noticeable effort on Albus' part. Albus stood over the beautiful werecat and cast a simple life-status diagnostic spell.

Deceased. Albus frowned in confusion as he felt the snow leopard-were stir.

Her yellow eyes fluttered open weakly.

"My lady, you must wake, I have returned to bring back your child to you, he has need of his mother."

"Please," she gasped out weakly. Her fur-covered hand clasping Albus' "I am already dead, they left me to turn." Albus' considerably less bushy than normal eyebrows furrowed.

"What about yourof your cub? Who will care for him?" Albus inquired softly.

"With my death, he will have no one" Tears leaked from warm yellow eyes.

"What happened? Who did this?" He asked gently.

"Two Vampires appeared in my sitting area a short while back. Th-they told me that they were here to deliver a message to you, my lord. I told them that you had already departed. T-they seemed convin-inced you would r-return." her yellow eyes dilated in pain.

"What was their message?" Albus asked, already knowing he was not going to like the answer.

"They told me to tell you that Lord Dracula sends his regards." She began coughing, Albus felt the rune on her neck activating, triggering a passphrase-activated spell.

Her yellow eyes bled orange, then turned red, and her already feline canines elongated even further, as she lunged up at Albus' jugular, all trace of the kind feline gone. She was little more than a flesh puppet now. With a lurch of surprise, he barely avoided her lunge, collapsing on the floor as he stared at the abomination that had replaced the once kind mother. The same mother who had wanted nothing more than to give her son a few more happy moments before he had been offered up to some demonic Yuletide spirit.

Albus' blood boiled. He knew, he just knew, that this was a declaration of war. That this was Dracula's way of telling him that no good deed would go unpunished.

With a snap of his fingers, an explosion of fire centered around her, harming nothing but the vampire, ignited into existence, the faint sound of phoenix song melancholically echoing through the air as within seconds nothing remained of the were-leopard.

With a bang, Rath'gar burst through the door and gazed in surprise at the last hints of phoenix fire smoldering in the air.

"Are you alright Albus?" The goblin prince asked, concerned to see something shimmering down the face of the Sorcerer Supreme.

"No my friend. I am very, very angry." Albus declared brushing away the tears from his face, determination and azure power being all that remained in his eyes. "Dracula has no idea what is coming for him. He is aware of us, he wanted to send us a message, and he is not afraid to provoke us."

"The boy's mother?" the goblin asked.

"Murdered and then turned to an undead, and now returned to death, where she belongs," Albus responded shortly, his gaze sweeping across the house, searching for any hints on the identity of the vampires.

"What will happen to the child?" the goblin asked softly. The goblin respected bravery, and if there was one thing that this cub had, it was bravery.

"She said that there was no one for him," Albus said contemplatively as he looked at the glass windows before an idea came to him. Striding up to the glass, he placed the tip of the deathstick up against the window.

"Látom, amit látott, elárulta előttem a titkait." Before the two men, the reflection on the glass shimmered, revealing with a twist of Albus' hand, everything it had seen in the last 24 hours.

The mother was crying, devastated by the loss of her child when the vampires came. They wore all red with a single red teardrop tattoo on their cloaks. They toyed with her, tortured her, and then they turned her.

Albus and Rath'gar looked at each other, the Hallows be damned, Dracula was going to pay for this, and they were going to enjoy it.

"What do we do about the cub? Surely someone in the village would be willing to take him in." Was that sentimentality Albus detected in the goblin prince's voice? Albus turned to his companion and looked him right in the eyes.

"Rath'gar, these villagers are the same ones that were willing to give up their own children, I would dare not trust them with the one in our care."

"Then he will come with us." The goblin stated firmly. Albus blinked, he had expected to have been the one to take that stance. It seems like his care for children had rubbed off on the goblin.

"Rath'gar, we are two strong adults, and this place is filled with nothing but the danger for us, where we are going is no place for a child, brave though he may be." Albus surprised even himself, with the coldness of his own logic.

"If we leave him here we consign him to the same or a similar fate as the one that his mother experienced." the goblin said, looking at Albus strangely. "Are you really suggesting we leave him?" incredulity tinged his friend's voice at the idea.

"No, I suppose not."

"Well, how do we tell him that his mother has been murdered?" Albus said, uncharacteristically nervous.

Rath'gar let out a bark-like laugh, there was little humor in it.

"And here I thought you were supposed to be the school teacher, Albus." He snorted in response.

"Believe it or not, I was rarely the one to give bad news to any of the children who walked into my halls. That job was left to the likes of Minerva or Severus." It was Rath'gar's turn to laugh.

"I will do it. I am no stranger to bearing bad news." Albus felt a tinge of relief. He was more than a bit embarrassed at not being able to tell the child of his mother's fate. The goblin paused as he walked away.

"You owe me one, Albus." Albus bowed his head in acknowledgment.

"I shall shroud the mother, he at least deserves to cremate her and take whatever he wishes, it is likely he shall never see this place again," Rath'gar said with a tinge of sadness for the boy.

"I shall go and alert the other villagers to what has transpired here," Albus said with a nod.

---

Luna Lovegood awoke surrounded by snow. She did not have the faintest clue as to where she was, but she was used to waking up in different places after she closed her eyes to sleep.

It was, after all, a side-effect of being her father's daughter and thus, like him, a Planes Walker. It was perhaps one of the strangest abilities. She could go anywhere, No walls would hinder her, no wards would deny her entrance, nor could any magic hold her, and any damage done to her mind would be undone when she crossed out of the realm she experienced it in. A consequence of being the child of an abomination, she suspected. Would that make her half abomination? Demi-abomination? Semi? It didn't matter, she supposed.

She had seen things that no mortal mind could see without shattering. She had seen monsters with more eyes than she had pores, eldritch gods consuming dimensions(an image which had driven her beyond the brink of insanity, but as always she was restored upon waking). She had seen the wonders of Alfheimr, and the glory of Asgard. She had seen the dreary indolence of the Fields of Asphodel and the hellfire burning in the depths of Tartarus itself.

The first time it had happened she must have been no older than 3 years.

She would remain in the plane she found herself until she died, and then she would find herself waking up back on Midgard.

It was understandably traumatizing even though she faced no lasting "damage", whatever that meant to her mind. The first time she had plane-walked into the halls of Valhalla, she had spent nearly five years there until she accidentally fell off one of the banisters she had been balancing on and had died only to appear back in her 3-year-old true body with the memories.

It happened nearly every time she slept. There were times where she appeared in an underwater realm, only to drown immediately, and other times when she appeared neck-deep in lava, burning alive.

If she were to be honest, it had completely cured her of the fear of death, because if she ever wanted to go back to Midgard all she had to do was die, and in nearly every case, the easiest and least painful way to do so was by her own hand.

It was a difficult thing keeping all of the memories straight, preserving her own sanity as by the tender age of 10 she had already lived an extra twenty-plus years.

In the beginning, she would wonder where she pleased with little to no control over where she went. Luna had no idea why she was there or what she was seeing, but after eleven years and a little over 4500 trips, she more or less knew the regular planes she frequented. That is exactly how she knew that she was currently somewhere in the Northern regions of the Realm of Eternal Night. Still, she had no reason to rush back to Midgard, and she had never made it up to the realm of Nevermelt.

With a flicker of her will, the snow swirled around her, fluffy and light as it shifted from powdery particles of ice to beautiful pale blue garb that retained just enough of the fluffiness the snow once had. The transfiguration was trivial, the magic here flowing much much more freely than on Midgard.

With a hum she walked down the road, wondering what she would find. After all her years of travel, learning magic, and wandering realms, there was little she could not handle, and she felt like exploring the pretty landscape some. Who knows, if she got bored enough she could simply cancel the spells that kept her warm. Freezing to death felt almost the same as going to sleep.

---

Albus and Rath'gar had made the arrangements for the funeral of the deceased mother, her cub angrily watching as the flames consumed the transfigured body and shroud.

The villagers put up no resistance to Rath'gar claiming the cub, convinced as they were that Albus was the true Yuletide spirit. They told the cub it was an honor, to which he had replied he had heard it all before.

The cub's name was Hóvihar, and more than anything he was furious.

Furious that his mother had been murdered by vampires, furious that she never knew he was safe and angry that no one seemed to care about her death.

When they had offered to take him with them, he had turned around without saying a word, and stormed into the house, collecting for himself a small pouch of things, including some clothes, several books, the blanket that he and his mother had used on the couch and a sword that was far too large for him. He came out, ready to go, much to the surprise of the two men.

Albus, unbeknownst to the cub, had collected everything else in the house and placed them in an expanded trunk. There was no need to leave it to be looted by the villagers, and the child might not know of it now, but there might be something that he would regret not collecting in the contents of the house.

Piling into the sleigh, they set off. The cub leaned into Albus' side, slowly drifting off to sleep.

---

The trio blasted through the snowbanks, the pines blurring past them as they made their way down the cliff face.

As they moved with haste down the long and winding path, Albus thought about how he was going to take care of the cub that was with them, in the face of the unspeakable horrors that would surely be between them and the king of vampires.

The same vampire that casually ordered the murder of the cub's mother, the same exact vampire that was famous in both the magical and mundane worlds for his cruelty.

Albus grimaced greatly hoping that there were more allies than just Rath'gar in the path to finding and claiming his cloak. There was also the small matter of the alluring Lady Death.

Albus had long since grown past pesky things like hormones, but now, faced with a far younger and stronger body, he felt things stir that he had not felt in a literal lifetime.

How bothersome.

Albus' rather petulant thought train was derailed as from the corner of his eye he saw a figure. Had his new and improved physique not saved him, he would have surely ended up with a crick in his neck as his head whipped around in shock.

Sitting in a tree, her legs dangling from the snow-covered branches, was Xenopilius Lovegood's daughter.

The blonde-haired girl simply waved at him as if nothing was wrong.

"Hullo Headmaster Dumbledore! What brings you to the Realm of Eternal Night?" the blonde girl chirped happily, as if there was nothing wrong in the world, like she was not in a completely inaccessible dimension to Midgard, dangling her legs off of a tree without a care in the world.

The sled screeched to a stop, throwing up a cloud of snow as the wizard looked at the girl with utter shock on his face, not even hearing Rath'gar's alarmed shout or the cub's whimpers as he stared at the face of someone whom he had honestly never spared a second thought.

To use a phrase Hadrian was fond of; What the fuck was happening?

Albus stared at young Luna still baffled by her presence here. He did not want to scare the young girl, but it also made no sense.

Rath'gar, like himself, had insisted it was a trap, that there was no way the barefooted young girl could have possibly braved their path to get here. That she would have been caught or dead or both.

There was just one big problem. Her magic was imprinted with the seal of Hogwarts. Just as every piece of Grand Magic that a being cast, as well as every higher being slain, leaves a mark on the soul of a wizard. Hogwarts too marks its students in the form of the Signum ab Academia or a "Mark of Tutelage".

Albus had learned later, the many insidious uses for such a mark. The International Confederation of Wizards tracked their people through it, and the ministry built its wards around it. The wards over Britain also tracked how many years of suffusion a wizard's schooling mark had.

It was a closely guarded secret, one that was rarely used except as a trump card, but it was hard to pretend to be Albus Dumbledore if you lacked the clear mark of someone who had spent over a century within the wards of the magical school.

That said, her seal was entering its third year, and he was convinced that the girl had been in her first year when they left. That meant that an entire year had passed in Midgard. Just the implications of that rocked Albus' world, a chill of anxiety flooding through him at the thoughts that flew through his mind.

How much had changed? How many of his multitude of projects were left uncompleted? How much had changed in his absence and without his guiding hand?

He needed answers, and answers he would get.

Twirling his wand, the man erected powerful wards absently, it would not do to be overheard or to be caught unawares. This place, no matter the beauty or peacefulness that it might portray, left its inhabitants only ever a moment away from death.

---

Luna sat down happily inside of the trunk that Headmaster Dumbledore had set up.

It had taken him nearly a full minute to get his bearings, then another thirty seconds to come up with which question he actually wanted the answer to. She wondered if it was some kind of record, the Headmaster did not seem the type to get flustered easily.

She was happy waiting, she did so love when her planewalks proved exciting. Dying in cool ways got boring after a while.

Albus' eyes had sparkled pretty colors and whatever he had seen had clearly been enough to convince him of her authenticity. But honestly who else could she be, as far as she had seen there were plenty of dimensions but only one Luna.

The younger Headmaster had smiled brilliantly before warding a clearing so heavily that she was sure even one of the nastier, more powerful necromancers couldn't so much as look into it. Prince Rath'gar (as she had learned the fearsome goblin warrior was called) had then brought an *ADORABLE* little white were-leopard into the trunk.

She wanted to squish him so badly, but Luna had learned in several different ways, that just because it looks like it needs a squish, doesn't mean it can't kill you painfully if it is offended by your squish, and so Luna pouted.

The Headmaster and the Prince were clearly very confused as to what she was doing in the Realm of Eternal Night, so she figured that she should do the right thing and clear up their confusion.

The little cub had apparently found her too scary to approach, let alone be squished by, and instead cuddled up to the goblin Prince, his big eyes looking at her suspiciously.

---

"So miss Lovegood, as I am sure you can imagine, we have a great many questions for you, the least of which is how you are here." Albus began after pouring the third year a cup of tea and summoning some scones that Hadrian had made and left under a localized time freezing spell. A truly ostentatious use of magic if Albus had ever seen one, but one that was, while he would never admit it to Hadrian, incredibly effective. The scones smelled, tasted, and felt like they had just come out of the oven.

"Oooh thank you headmaster," Luna said excitedly, eagerly biting into one of the delicious-looking scones in front of her. "Well you see, it is like this, I am the Planeswalker. Albus blinked as Rath'gar choked on his tea.

"The Planeswalker?" he repeated, confusedly.

"Yep," Luna responded, popping the p, the rather serious look on her face completely out of place on the girl.

"I am sorry, I don't understand," Albus confessed as Rath'gar stared at the girl with something akin to shock.

"Well, it is like this. Every night when I go to sleep, I wake up on a different plane." Luna said nonchalantly. Albus blinked again.

"So you can travel planes?" the headmaster asked cautiously.

"No, don't be silly, that would be far too hard. I create an entirely new physical form and my spirit takes it over. I don't really understand it myself but that is how it seems to work."

"But how do you get back? Have your professors or father never noticed you disappearing? That sounds rather problematic" the headmaster inquired.

"I don't think time works the same as it does in my normal body for me. And as for how I get back, I just have to die." It was now Albus' turn to choke.

"But you dream every night!" The man said aghast.

"Well, most nights." The girl looked confused as to his issue with such a statement.

"But that would drive anyone mad!" Albus interjected. "You would age and de-age daily, with little to no continuum you would experience and remember countless separate lives and you would have to reconcile all of that with your actual reality!"

"I don't really think it's all that difficult, Headmaster," Luna reached out and grabbed another scone completely unbothered. "The dying part only hurts a bit, and then I'm back in my normal body. It stops being scary after about the 120th time." Albus sagged. It felt like a lifetime ago, but Filius had mentioned that he suspected the girl was a seer of some sort, but no one could have imagined the absolute torture her life must have been.

He felt a hand touch his elbow and looked up with emotional eyes, to look directly into the eyes of Luna Lovegood, who smiled at him.

"Don't worry Headmaster, I am quite used to it, and most of the lives don't even last that long." This certainly did not make Albus feel any better about poor Luna's situation.

"I am truly sorry Miss Lovegood, that none of the adults in your life tried to help you with this burden." and Albus genuinely meant it, he was sometimes a bit absent, but he really did genuinely care about every one of the students that he had.

"It's ok. It is actually pretty cool sometimes, I have traversed something like over 100 different realms and planes. There are some really pretty ones!" Albus felt a headache coming on, but they were not done yet.

"Miss Lovegood, I don't suppose you could share with me some news of how Midgard has fared since mine and Hadrian's absence?" Albus asked, glancing at Rath'gar and the purring cub who was still staring at the girl impassively.

"Let me see, what happened...?" Albus looked at the girl realizing the difficulty of the question he had just asked someone like her. If indeed she lived until she died. And this happened nightly. Then her true life was small fragments of a series of "reincarnations" even a master of occlumency would struggle to recall a lot of what happened if it was separated by such a mess of timelines. He suspected it would take her a moment t-

"Ok, I think the main thing that I would want to know if I were you, is that the Minister of Magic declared you and Hadrian dead, they had a funeral and everything. They then tried to take over Hogwarts, and are trying to usher in a "Ministry-approved" curriculum, I think they found it harder than they thought because not much has changed." Albus' face fell into a thoughtful frown, that was fairly expected, and hopefully nothing too unchangeable.

"Honestly I am not sure what else you want me to tell you, I am, after all, just a third-year at Hogwarts on Midgard," Luna said far too innocently. Rath'gar barked out a laugh at the response.

"It seems Albus, you don't know quite as much about your students as you should, first Hadrian, now a Planeswalker. I fear for what else you have missed in your halls." The Goblin's laugh was a strange thing, somewhat frightful for those not accustomed to it.

"I suppose it would be too much to ask about any news of the ministry or the Wizengamot?" Dumbledore asked ignoring the goblin. There was a shard of truth there that Albus was not quite ready to accept.

"I do not know much about them, Headmaster Dumbledore, but there is one thing I can tell you; there was recently a bit of fright over an ICW Law 1004-AMCA. My father specifically forbade me from writing about it in the Quibbler" Albus paled dramatically, his eyes widening in disbelief.

"Tell me you are joking Miss Lovegood, and that those idiots in the ICW did not approve that law. If you will excuse the pun my dear, it is complete and utter lunacy," Albus snarled in disbelief, a flex of his fingers sending a massive book of ministerial decrees flying over to him.

For once Luna looked completely serious, her scone and tea forgotten, a clarity in her eyes that had not been there previously as she nodded solemnly.

"Would either of you mind explaining to the goblin what this means?" Rath'gar inquired lightly.

"It means that the fools at the ICW are about to doom themselves and the entire world with their ignorance and are risking outright war with the Circle of Arch-Magi!"

Flipping through his summoned tome of ICW law, he found what he was looking for.

"The Arcane Magic Conscription Act is a despicable act that I blocked every time it came to the floor. It gives individual Ministries and the Confederation the right to legally violate the rights of every race or species blessed by magic. It will be facilitated by the formation of the Arcane Magic Conscription Bureau, whose duty is to erase and ban any and all magic deemed outside the normal purview of magic per the ICW. Any such magic shall see itself conscripted or turned over to ICW control." Rath'gar looked at Albus, his eyebrows nearly touching.

"Forget the council of Arch-Magi, the Goblins will never stand for such a travesty! The ICW will have a massive goblin rebellion on their hands! Surely no one thinks that it is a good idea to do this kind of thing? They exist to protect the statute and nothing more. It is not their place to dictate policy and certainly not morals, nor do they have the authority to ban magic- except in those cases where it might compromise the statute." Rath'gar exclaimed with disbelief. Luna shook her head, in disagreement.

"The average wizard has absolutely no idea what any of these magics mean to the lives of those that have them, and they frankly don't care. Luckily, I don't think it will make it through the ICW courts, not immediately, at least. There is enough disagreement on the topic to make such a change a long and difficult one." Luna said, her eyes startlingly clear to Albus' gaze.

"Can I ask you Miss Lovegood, what mind magic are you employing? Your eyes reflect far more clarity than they did before." the Headmaster noted curiously.

"Oh, I should have expected that you would notice, this is the elven practice of calaina sanar. The Clear Mind. I honestly should have expected that you would recognize that I was employing mind magic," Luna said with a grin.

"Why do you not use Occlumancy?" Albus asked curiously as Luna cocked her head, her blonde hair falling a cascading wave down her shoulders.

"Now, where and when would I learn that headmaster?" Luna said with a small smile. "It is not like I spend that much time on Midgard after all." Albus shook his head at the lunacy of it all.

"No, I suppose not. It seems that this Calaina Sanar is a rather difficult piece of magic." Albus said in acknowledgment.

"Less difficult and more unnatural Headmaster Dumbledore. The human mind is not meant for elven magics, and though I am a bit more than normal, it can still be as damaging if I employ it for too long, and yet without it, even with the blood of my father, all of the knowledge I acquire would drive me insane. As it is, I toe the line with insanity." Luna admitted quietly.

Albus nodded his head, it made sense.

"Well, I suppose we will have to work on your Occlumency in our time together because it just so happens that I know a thing or two about mind magics," Albus said, reaching over and pulling a book on mind magic off the shelf. The red leather-bound tome featuring a large brain on the cover.

---

The motley group had moved on, the young girl deciding to accompany the trio on 'their adventure' as they moved towards the location of Dracula's castle.

What amazed Albus was the sheer amount of knowledge she had about the universe they occupied. While he did not envy the girl, who in her likely long life would live what seemed like an infinite number of lifetimes before being released from the curse that was planeswalking upon the death of her anchor body, he could very much enjoy her unique perspective.

"Miss Lovegood, if you do not mind me asking, you mentioned being a planeswalker, but does that mean you are limited to dimensions that were sundered? Or is there more? Hadrian and I have been trying to piece together what we can. We have figured out that there was originally a main plane of existence, and to prevent the arrival of the Demons, many of the gods of old, sundered reality, fragmenting it, birthing the realms. Is this what you have discovered as well?" Albus asked the girl curiously.

"Hm, that is a very fragmented understanding of what has happened, but I suppose it is a good theory for someone who has not moved around as much as me. Let me see if I can help you understand." Luna splayed her fingers and to the surprise of Albus and Rath'gar and the enjoyment of Hóvihar, a long plane, floating like an island displayed the original plane of existence. A map of the world, with several branches of reality coming out of it at certain locations.

"For a second we will ignore space, it gets a lot more complex when you try and understand this with all of those other spheres as well. Now consider this to be the material plane, this is where we all exist, the realms as you say are attached to this, whether on earth or not." Rath'gar and Albus nodded their hands in understanding.

"In this state, movement happens like this," Luna made a small image of Dumbledore who moved across the planes of the map.

"Now, at some point, the gods decided to sunder reality to protect Midgard and this reality from destruction. In actuality, the sundering happened in four dimensions, but for demonstration purposes, this should work." Luna then made a claw and twisted her hands, and the previously flat 2-dimensional map crumpled into a ball, twisting upon itself. Places that had previously been across the map now touched each other, but more importantly, there was no real way to make sense of the 3-dimensional shape.

"If I understand your journey correctly then what you have done in your travel is this," a small dot that looked like Albus and Harry strolled across a section of the map, moving like they were on the loop section of a squiggle before continuing through where they were moving onto one of the crumpled sections, that met the loop they were on.

Albus and Rath'gar looked on in confusion, It was like drawing a line across a folded piece of paper, if you opened it, the line would seem to jump but at the time of drawing, the pen had moved in a straight line.

"Now, the planes do not refer only to realms, of which there were many, but to dimensions as well. I, as a planeswalker, have the ability to travel not just linearly, as you have been doing, but on complex paths that snake through different planes of existence." Luna put the palms of each hand together, and slowly lifted them, and suddenly what had been a colored map, a bit crumpled, became nearly a hundred times more complex.

Albus' eyebrows ascended as he realized how complex the universe actually was, and this was just a single world, not taking into account alternate dimensions, like the one where the demons were from.

"Now to keep it short and simple, there are four planes that I consider to be the 'big' ones," twisting her splayed fingers suddenly the entirety of the map seemed ethereal and smoke-like.

"The Ethereal and Astral Planes are what might be called transitive planes, they are what magic and non-physical reality pass through. They are mostly featureless realms that serve primarily as ways to travel from one plane to another, they are like pipes really, essential for the material plane to function and yet hopefully unseen."

"I suspect that is where the Nightmare Realm is." Albus mused.

"You would be somewhat right, it is only partially in the astral plane, on the edge of the Astral plane and the Material one, hence why it exists the way it does. Most of the other classifications of planes are all completely beyond human comprehension and any time I appear in one of those there is a single moment where time does not matter, where movement is impossible, where I am able to witness and see the unseeable before reality corrects the anomaly."

"Why though, is it still in existence if I am not incorrect?" Rath'gar inquired curiously. Luna's laughter was a twinkling one.

"Prince, how can material existence exist where there is no material?" Rath'gar's eyes widened. Luna hummed patiently, gesturing again, four impressions of the crumpled map separating themselves.

"The Inner Planes surround and enfold the Material Plane and its echoes, providing the raw elemental substance from which all the worlds were created from. The four Elemental Planes are, as you might expect, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. They are more raw energy and concepts than anything else. They are beyond mortal thought, including my own." Luna then swirled her fingers through the projections.

"By far the most dangerous of planes are the Outer planes though," she said, indicating the ones at the top and the bottom of the stack of planes that had been separated from the material plane."They exist tangential to creation, divine planes, or extraplanar you could say. Beyond even the limits of the other planes. Places that exist in thought, purpose, and parable. They are the homes of the deities." Luna said grimly. Images flickered in the projection- massive halls, a swirling maw of tentacles, an endless ocean, each having a needle-like connection, piercing the bubble of existence, yet not all of it at the same time.

"The Du'at would be one such place?" Albus asked curiously to their planar guide, his own perception of reality shattered by the tale being woven for them.

"The duat is a mere reflection of an outer plane tied to the material plane through mortal conviction and attachment through the ethereal and astral planes. The true Du'at is something more." Luna said with a bit of a grin. A grin Albus realized at their innocence, and at their naivety, how odd.

"When discussing anything to do with deities, the language used must be highly metaphorical, the material manifestations of their actual homes are not literally "places" at all, but exemplify the idea that the Outer Planes are realms of thought and spirit. As with the Elemental Planes, one can imagine the perceptible part of the Outer Planes as a sort of border region, a distortion that allows you to recognize the difference and presence of air, while most of the extensive spiritual regions lie beyond ordinary sensory experience, much like the rest of the air you do not see, but know is there." There was something old to Luna's voice, something that was not in line with the normal chipper innocent third year that they had been conversing with before this part of the conversation, an ancientness that made Albus a bit uncomfortable.

"Even in those perceptible regions, appearances can be deceptive. Initially, many of the Outer Planes appear hospitable and familiar, like in the case of the Du'at it appears you are in Egypt, but the reality is actually something completely different, it is nothing but the point where the outer plane connects to the material one that you experienced. The landscape can change at the whims of the powerful forces that live on the Outer Planes. The desires of the denizens that dwell on those planes can remake them completely, effectively erasing and rebuilding existence itself to better fulfill their own needs, no mortal could survive unwelcome beyond the outermost edges of one." Albus suddenly realized how truly lucky they had been. How fortunate they were that they had not stayed or strayed when they had traversed the Du'at.

"Distance is a virtually meaningless concept on the Outer Planes. The perceptible regions of The Planes often seem quite small, but they can also stretch on to what seems like infinity. For the limits of an Outer Plane are not for entities with limit." Albus' brow furrowed.

"When we were in Svartalfheimr, Hadrian battled the Many-tentacled-one." Luna's eyes snapped onto his in alarm, the wandless illusion shattering, tentacles wrapping around the material plane as her eyes widened in horror, her head bowing in sadness.

"I am sorry for your loss, I know he was your apprentice." the third-year said sadly.

"I think you misunderstand Luna, Hadrian won," Albus said with a hint of mirth at her confused expression.

"He defeated the Lord of Madness? Does he realize what blight he has brought to the material plane in doing so? He may have bought himself some more time, but he might have doomed all of reality with his hubris." Albus was confused, her countenance was one of someone a simple moment away from an utter mental breakdown.

"I am sorry to alarm you Luna, but it's ok, Hadrian slew the Avatar." Luna's eyes furrowed.

"No matter how talented my fellow Ravenclaw might seem, I am fairly sure the likes of the avatar of the Lord of Madness is very much beyond him." She said with disbelief.

"He was joined in battle with the smith god Joradin," Rath'gar said, enjoying the look of surprise on Luna's face.

"I think it is time that you should tell me about this adventure of yours." Luna's expression had returned to one of steely wisdom, all traces of her innocence gone.

Albus looked at her in surprise, the personality changes he had seen her exhibit in a short period of time certainly a cause for alarm and consideration.

Albus suspected that she would need more than occlumency to help her keep her mind functioning and whole.

---

The much-expanded party had begun their journey southward, Albus had little to no idea where they were going except that It was in the southern direction towards the general location of the ever-moving Castle Dracula, Hóvihar was once again sleeping in the trunk, with Rath'gar watching over the cub leaving Albus and Luna to drive the sleigh through the icy mountains. The group had been traveling for a while now, he had no idea for how long, the Eternal Night had that kind of effect on the perception of time. In that time Luna had mentioned that she was the child of some sort of monster multiple times, but he knew Xenophillius and Selene, they were not monsters.

They had decided to follow the map they had taken from Krampus that would lead them to the Castle of Dracula, all it had taken was a simple modified point me spell, and a glowing path revealed itself to the driver of the sled, one that would lead them to the gates of their enemy. The sled's course set, Albus turned to look at Luna Lovegood, a student like so many others that he had not spared more than a passing thought to, sat next to him, idly kicking her feet as she marveled at the sparkling wonderland as they flew through it.

Albus had seen any number of marvelous beings and creatures in his life, but he had never known a being with as cursed existence as Luna, what could birth such an existence? She had said a monster, but what did that mean?

"You might as well ask what is on your mind, Headmaster," Luna said with no hint of her previous maturity, this seemed to be the young Luna that attended Hogwarts.

"Forgive me for my obvious curiosity, my dear, you mentioned your father was a monster, but Xenophilius is far from one, so I must ask, who is your father?" Luna frowned.

"Do you know how I told you about the planes? Specifically the divine planes?" Albus nodded.

"My father and mother were what you would call cultists." Albus' bushy eyebrows rose in surprise.

"That is a harsh term Miss Lovegood," Albus said placatingly with some degree of surprise, it was rather unsettling to see the normally kind girl so direct.

"What else would you call people who reach out blindly into the divine planes they knew nothing about seeking a divine child." Albus' eyes widened.

"Are you saying..." Albus' voice trailed off in horror.

"Yes, my parents, being worshipers of the moon, reached out for any divine being connected to the moon to answer their call. But that's the thing, most divinity is fickle, they don't see things as mortals do and as such, I would hardly classify any of them as 'good'. They exist beyond such parameters. They beseeched any who could hear them to come to them and to give them the child they couldn't have. To Grace the world with a child, and you know the saying, 'If you shout loud enough and hard enough, do not complain about who or what comes asking.' Well, something did come asking, something did come to find out who had called, it just wasn't any of the divinities that this material realm had ever interacted with, it wasn't supposed to be here. They called it the Moon Presence, and I have little idea how it worked, but when it left, my mother was with child, and my fathers' sanity had a crack in it," The longer her tale went, the more horrified Albus became.

An unknown divinity impregnating a witch, what could go wrong?

"Thankfully for everyone, my parents had not been so stupid to summon it without precautions, and because of this, the Moon Presence created me and then departed back to its realm," Luna's eyes flashed a red momentarily before she took a deep breath, the color receding.

"That is why I am the way I am, I am a mortal child of a god, a demigod child of the moon, and not just any moon, I am born as the Blue Moon, the child of an old one, for what purpose and why only it knows." Albus had to clamp down on his curiously to know more, Ilsensine, the Many Tentacled One was enough, and he had done very little actual fighting against the god, that had been up to Hadrian, he had little to no experience with how to deal with one, especially not one such as this, if it took interest in their conversation and decided to appear in front of them.

"That is incredible, have you ever conversed with your father?" Albus asked cautiously. The angry look in Luna's normally vibrant eyes nearly had him reeling back in surprise.

"I saw him once, and let me say, if it will never be so again, I would not stop being grateful for that fact even a millisecond, I was nothing more than a roll of a dice to it, a way of showing that it existed, and opening a door to who knows what end here in this plane of existence, and every other I visit." Her eyes had lost their sparkle, and her voice, it's childish disposition.

"There is something that many do not understand about divinity Headmaster, and that is that it is a sliding scale. It is how I can be a happy child filled with wonder and the Blue Moon, daughter of an Eldritch god beyond comprehension. There exist both things in me, mortal and immoral, and whichever I engage with more becomes dominant."

There was not much to say after that revelation, and they continued on their way in relative silence, both parties contemplative in their silence.

If he was right, one of the two personalities was the demigoddess inside of the girl, the one who was made stronger the longer she was exposed to the moonlight, and the other girl was her mortal self.

Albus looked at the ridge ahead and sighed, for all of its beauty the world truly was a vast place. Albus stared at a rigid luna for a second. It was almost as if Hadrian had shocked her with the way her muscles tightened.

Albus glanced back at the map when Luna suddenly whipped her head around looking off in a direction. Not a moment later, he felt an explosion of death energy echo in the very fabric of the plane coupled with a scream, a scream that was distinctly female. Lady Death.

With a crack of the reins, the sleigh veered off course.

"What was that?" Luna asked him, blinking owlishly. "It felt like death."

"A side quest," Albus said grimly, the sleigh picking up speed as they zoomed off in the direction of the pulse.

---

Albus parked the sleigh near the edge of the forest, before them lay something that Albus had seen in his vision of Lady Death, a massive evil-looking fortress. Rath'gar, Hóvihar, and Luna all looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to explain what the plan was, and why they had suddenly decided to come in this direction.

The fortress was perhaps one of the strangest that Albus had ever seen, and considering that he had seen an illithid citadel up close, that was indeed saying something. There was something especially creepy about the blackened bark of the trees, the long shadows that the large moon cast on the seemingly endless yellowed field, that didn't sit right with any of them. This was not a place any of them wanted to be.

The fortress's fifteen tall spires seemed like a crown, and the glowing neon runes that spiraled across the edges of the architecture and the connecting parapets of the lower structure in the shape of a massive glowing pentagram told them that whatever this thing was it was meant to keep things in as much as out. Albus was shaken from his thoughts by a soft snort from Luna who had been looking at the structure with recognition.

"Honestly I had no idea that the Poarta Morții was here, it is something of a legend for the denizens of the Realm of Eternal Night, but it is exactly where we find ourselves," Luna said thoughtfully, staring at the massive fortress. At the rest of the group's puzzled look, the girl continued her explanation.

"A local legend, the Poarta Morții is supposed to be the prison of a single prisoner, Dracula's ex-consort. When his lover rejected his advances, Dracula constructed this prison and had her imprisoned in it under the most horrifying guard until such a time where she would agree to be his consort and submit to his will," Luna paused looking a bit grim as she looked at the building with distaste. "I always thought it was a spooky story to scare people, but I suspect it is more of a warning to all of those whom Dracula takes a fancy to, not to reject his advances or suffer her fate. No one knows who his consort was, and I have never heard any mention of where the Poarta Morții was located."

"Might it be some other prison? This is the Realm of Eternal Night after all. I am sure there is no limit to the number of creepy prisons that are to be found in this realm, is there any way to know?" Rath'gar said speculatively. Albus looked pensive for a minute, his eyes narrowing in thought.

"There might be a way, but I am unsure if it will reveal our presence or not, and before we do such a thing, we must make a decision, who among us will be going to raid the fortress?" Rath'gar nodded, and Luna looked on excitedly before Rath'gar frowned and looked at the small snow-leopard cub quietly playing in the snow.

"Need I remind you that Hóvihar is a child? A fortress of torture and death is not the place for one such as him" Rath'gar said with some reproach. Albus frowned at the comment.

"No you do not, and that is precisely what we need to discuss, we have three options, you or Miss Lovegood can stay here with him, or we could leave him in the trunk," Albus said with a frown. Rath'gar and Luna both looked at the child contemplatively.

Albus knew it was not ideal to have the child with them as they lost manpower defending the child, but truthfully, doing what was right always superseded what was easy, and leaving the child in the hands of the villagers who had already sent him to the clutches of a demonic power like Krampus was a large mistake. No, these were their options. Luna had a serious look on her face as she glared up at Albus, it looked out of place on the normally innocently curious girl's face.

"Miss Lovegood do you have a problem?" Albus asked calmly.

"No just a question, how many times have you been to this realm?" Albus blinked as he looked at her incredulously.

"None, few have ever come to this realm and returned to our own," Albus said confused at her point.

"And correct me if I am mistaken, but you have never died, have you, headmaster?" Albus and Rath'gar shared a look before shaking their heads in denial.

"So it would perhaps be prudent to ask someone who has been to this plane far more times than yourself, and who has died far more times than yourself, what she thinks about this idea." Albus's eyebrows rose to his hairlines as he realized exactly what the faux pas he had committed was. With a short bow, a habit he had picked up in Svartalfheimr, he nodded in acquiescence.

"It appears you are correct Miss Lovegood, please forgive my presumption, it is hard to change old habits, and I have yet to realize the full implications of seeing you here, and failed to consider you as an active player in this upcoming endeavor," Albus said with genuine remorse. If being around Hadrian had taught him one thing, it was that appearances could be very deceiving.

"What do you think, Miss Lovegood?" Albus asked the miniature blonde girl who looked far too serious as she looked at him in the eyes.

"I think that you would make a rather large mistake if you left me with the cub, " Albus nodded his head in agreement.

"I will stay with Hóvihar then," Rath'gar said with barely a snarl, Albus could tell that while he was not happy, even if the pragmatic goblin prince knew it made the most sense.

Albus moved to set up the wards around the sleigh when Luna walked up and looked at him curiously.

"I do not suppose you know any awards?" Albus asked curiously to his third-year student. Luna smiled, and the moon seemed to glow brighter before rays of moonlight seemed to stretch down to their position. The long shafts of moonlight rotated swirling like in a vortex before solidifying into a dodecahedron and dimming.

Albus blinked. That was no ordinary shield spell.

How unusual. Ms. Lovegood seemed to understand his question as she turned and looked at him with a friendly smile.

"That is the Moon's Vault, they will be safe from nearly anything so long as the moon sheds its rays on them. Considering the moon is always full here, it should protect them from just about anything," Albus nodded sensibly, he probably should have expected something like this from her, especially knowing what her father was. He took a deep breath, slowly letting it out as he prepared himself, gesturing towards the castle the thrill of what was to come filling him with dare he say eagerness.

Albus readied himself, drawing the well of power in him out, with a grunt, he cast his magic out, a single glowing sigil forming at his feet, before it passed over him, rushing from his feet upwards to the crown of his head. Each of his many artifacts, swirling into existence as they were summoned from their various places of storage, the Boots of Ilsensagron, the Darhain Cuffs, Resurrection Stone, the Elder Wand, and Mondstral amongst the more prominent.

Albus breathed out slowly, the thrum of their presence overwhelming for an instant even as Albus' magic pulsed. The sorcerers' eyes erupted in purple flames as the Resurrection Stone flared to life on his chest, the locket that it had been set into glowing brightly as it opened revealing the stone wreathed in violet fire. Mondstral, not to be outdone in the face of the other artifacts showy unveiling, revealed its true radiance in the same way the full moon is unveiled by the cloud cover, with a smooth transition from darkness to light. The deathstick flew into his hand from where it had been floating.

Luna looked at him in surprise, the deathstick a long 6 foot line of darkness in the sphere of radiant amethyst light, Mondstral flowing out in an invisible wind to seemingly complete the set. Imagery she had seen since her childhood on her fathers cloak flashing before her eyes.

The Deathly Hallows.

Her eyes pulsed milky white for a split second, before returning to their normal icey blue as she bowed to Albus deeply as the lightshow faded.

"I was unaware that you had them my Lord," Luna said from her bow to Albus' confusion, "All three Hallows," she said with reverence.

"Sadly my dear, that is why we are here, I have two of the three Hallows. The cloak is named Mondstral, certainly a worthy companion, but not the Third of Three." Luna nodded, her voice taking on an older tone as she looked at him speculatively.

"If you hope to, you must complete the set with all urgency, I don't think there is a single immortal being that would let you, a mortal, complete the set if they knew how close you were to it," the Moonchilde said.

"Do you require anything before we see what lies in the fort?" Luna asked as she stared at him, her eyes suddenly strangely alien, Something that, while he hated to admit it of any of his students, unsettled him greatly, it looked so out of place on her normally kind and gentle face.

"I think I will be alright," Albus replied, trying to shake the fel feeling that he got when he looked at her just then. Albus glanced at her once more only to do a double-take as it seemed that a single moment was all it had taken her to change personalities once more.

In the place of the young girl that he had known as his student stood a girl wreathed in pearly white. Gone were the beautiful blue eyes, in their place two full moons, suspended in a ring of blue. Her cloak seemed to flow impossibly like wisps of the clouds that shrouded the moon. Silvery armor adorned her, a facsimile of a rib cage and on her head was what looked like a circlet made of white pearlescent bone in the shape of flowing tentacles. Albus's apparent distaste at the armor design must have shown on his face as she grimaced.

"A gift from my divine parent, The Moon's Heir was of their design. Albus nodded, reaching into one of the multitudes of pouches on his waist and handing her a communication ring.

"This will help us not get in each other's way," Luna nodded, the facade of naivety gone from her expression, a cruel excitement remaining as she took the offered ring and slipped it on to her finger.

'I see,' She said telepathically.

"The Hallows feel the echo of their own power, either she, or something they resonate with is inside," Albus said thoughtfully, as if he was not about to join a third-year student in raiding a prison holding the avatar of Death. She might have only spent three years at Hogwarts, and that may be her preferred identity, but Albus had seen enough to know that, while there was a little girl inside of Luna Lovegood, there was her parent's child as well. Albus had no doubt that she was all that he feared her to be.

"Shall we go and knock?' Luna said with her head cocked to her left in curiosity.

"I have just the idea," Albus said with a Hadrianesque grin on his face.

Rath'gar for his part was reassessing his previous frustration at being left behind. Seeing the look on Albus' face he was, for once, grateful that he was safely inside the shining barrier Luna had erected. Having fought in many large battles since their journey into the depths of Svartalfheimr, battles that no one would hear the majesty of, if all of them ended up dead, the Goblin was happy to stay out of whatever madness was about to occur. The goblin had learned during their journey that the only thing worse than a rampaging Hadrian was a rampaging Albus.

---

Albus crossed two fingers over the knuckles of his left fist, his pinky extended as he flicked his hand outwards. A sigil blossomed beneath him, and Luna and with another gesture, the duo rose into the sky, standing on light made solid.

Grasping the Deathstick, Albus drank the power of one of the diamonds on the Darhain cuffs, it's light going dark, as like an avenging Zeus, Albus suffused the gathered power into the Death Stick before directing it at the offending fortress.

The massive beam of purple light blasted out of the deathstick, his will and power all the artifact needed to complete the siege spell.

The beam the size of the Hogwarts Express lanced through the air only to hit the wards with a loud clanging sound. Albus' eyes widened as Luna grabbed him out of the way as the beam blasted right through where the duo had just been floating.

Albus's sigh of relief caught in his throat as he realized while two were ok, the beam had continued onward, flying right into the cliffside they had left Rath'gar on.

---

Rath'gar was sitting in the silvery dome the demigod had placed on their sled, watching through the distorted view of the outside world as Albus and Luna made their way to the massive fortress, the cub looking around curiously as cubs tended to.

For a child, the cub really was handling all of this extremely well. Rath'gar saw the floating form of Albus launch what he was sure to be a devastating magical attack towards the fortress, probably to take out the wards he mused.

When suddenly purple filled his vision. The goblin prince had only a second to realize what was happening, and to throw himself over the confused cub before purple fire consumed their world, he should have known better than to think madness the likes of what Hadrian or Albus created would not find him no matter the odds.

---

Albus looked at the cliffside in horror. He had never seen wards that could do that. Repel the power of death itself. Albus froze as he realized exactly how foolish his choice in spell had been. He had attacked a prison specifically designed to negate the powers of Lady Death herself, with those very same powers and expected it to work.

Albus's spiral into despair was interrupted by two clear blue eyes staring into his own, the girl's face the same mask of kindness and vibrancy that it had been when they first picked her up.

"Do not worry headmaster, I am sure they are fine. My father would not let anything happen to someone under the protection of the Moon. They will be fine, if a little rattled." Albus heaved a single sob of relief before he grasped for his occlumency.

One would think he would be better at this whole siege thing after the sheer number of them he had been part of recently, but apparently, they would be wrong about that.

"Thank you Luna, it would seem no matter how many sieges I take part in, I never seem to learn my lesson that rushing in is not quite the way to do it. I greatly appreciate your help." Albus meant it too, the thrill of power was no reason to forget even for a moment his lifetime of experience and the caution he had nurtured throughout it. The quest had taken him and stripped bare the caution he had cultivated as only power could. He looked at the girl, curious as to why she had gone silent only to rear back as her eyes became completely white as she stared at him with a piercing gaze.

Luna closed her eyes, and took a long deep breath, her eyes returning to the sparkling blue that they normally were.

"I would be careful of thanking anyone casually, headmaster, you never know what takes an interest." There was a strain to her voice that Albus didn't like. There was a feeling he had come to associate with the Unnatural. He felt it from Ms. Lovegood far more keenly than he had ever expected. How this had gone unnoticed was something he could not fathom. Perhaps it was best to direct that ire of hers in a more productive direction, Albus thought to himself. With a gesture he sent them flying towards the prison they would be taking, not by storm he supposed, but certainly by Death.

---

Albus knew that his blunder had certainly alerted whatever guardians there were in the prison to their presence, but he did not expect this.

The two had begun their approach flying through the twisted trees, it seemed like no time at all before the howls began. Werewolves.

It started off as a single howl, and soon there was cacophony, too many to even count. Hundreds, maybe thousands of howls rose to the moon as the werewolves began their hunt.

Luna looked around, a tinge of anger coloring her face at the sound. The white crept into her eyes again. Signaling to Albus the presence of the moonchild rather than the curious Hogwarts student he had been acquainted with until recently.

"They dare threaten me?"; The words escaped her mouth in more of a hiss than the normal gentle tones that one would associate with the Ravenclaw girl.

'And just what makes you off-limits? Why wouldn't the enemy attack you?' Albus asked curiously. Luna scowled at him, another thing that marked a difference in personalities between the genial innocent and kind girl he had interacted with in the sleigh and the demigod he was looking at now.

'It is uniquely human to have such blatant disrespect, the other races are not so foolish to disrespect the hand that feeds them, let alone those that created them. You mentioned to me the respect the Drow had for Joradin, but what you failed to understand is that is the norm. He is one of the gods of the realm, it is the way of things, how things should be. I had explained to you the elemental planes, one of the subplanes I did not mention is the plane where all of the lunar power resides. The Wolves are a product of that plane, and my parent, one of the 'Great Ones' , the aspects of that plane, who dwells further from the edge of logic and rationality than any can comprehend, is more idea than flesh and blood. Only in Midgard are the mortals so deluded to dare to think that even with magic they could stand against that kind of divinity. The wolves are the moon's own children, I am one of the moon's heirs, a ray of moonlight-made flesh. Their daring to challenge me is the epitome of hubris.

Albus looked at the girl curiously, it seemed that the mortal and immortal sides to her were separate in power and personality.

'So what you are suggesting is that by challenging you, aware of your presence or not, they have committed a grievous offense against their patron?' Albus said curiously unaware of divine politics.

'Yes, all children of the moon are beneath any with even a spark of lunar divinity,' Luna said.

'It doesn't seem like they realize that.' Albus said dryly as suddenly three wolves leaped from the trees towards their fast-moving sigilic transportation.

'They will.' With a flick Luna had cut them down, spikes of silvery moonlight flashing from her hands puncturing the werewolves' flesh and killing them as easily as a killing curse would a child. He went to help here, only to be stopped by his silvery companions' raised hand.

'I will handle my fathers suicidal subjects, just get us closer,' a wave of light sliced through four of the lunging wolves at once, continuing onwards into the trees behind them.

Soon enough they exited the twisted trees and entered a clearing, the moonlight streaming unimpeded into the area between them and the massive fortress prison.

Luna gasped as Albus brought them into the clearing.

Hundreds of werewolves, and what seemed to be thousands of undead, stood between them and the outermost gate to the prison. Albus felt a pulse of fear, he had never faced off against so many enemies alone. He had always had Hadrian.

Looking out across the sea of undead, and the howling hunting parties of Werewolves, each a class XXXXX creature. Each one of which would require a squad of Aurors to fight per ministry regulations. Albus felt a hint of panic as he realized these were werewolves who were under an eternal full moon; there was little hope that they remained sane as the moon's song must have surely entranced them.

Albus and Luna set down on an outcropping rock. Luna strode forward with intent.

/Children of the moon, I give you a single chance to submit. You challenge a Moonchilde, progeny of a Great One. Surrender and let us pass and you shall be spared and forgiven./ Luna's voice had an echoing quality that made every single one of the thousands of weres flatten their ears. Albus felt his sigils flare up for the first time in a while, he had no idea Miss Lovegood was going to give him such a headache.

Suddenly laughter, of all things, filled the air. A sole clear laugh rang out, and suddenly the moon's white light pulsed, being replaced by an orange hue.

/What makes you think you are the only one of the moon's progeny here?/ Albus was nearly driven to the ground by the cackling voice as Luna's head whipped around until she saw the speaker.

"The Hunter's Moon" Luna ground out even as she seemed to glow brighter, her own white pushing back the orange glow if that was at all possible. It's only response was more laughter. Albus took an unsteady breath as he pulled his power around himself as a cloak, shaking off the frightful presence.

/Moon spawn!/ Its guttural and unnatural voice echoing all around them.

"All we want is the Lady." Albus said diplomatically, he had no desire to fight what he suspected was the original werewolf.

/You mortal fool. You dare to speak to me about your wants?/ The cackling voice ripped through the field like a dozen knives, the mirth evaporating as even the moon seemed to get a tinge more red to reflect the being's displeasure. The anger at his presence was audible in the true tongue as it smashed against Albus' mental shields, forcing a groan from his lips as he felt his very reality crack under the strain of the true tongue.

/You will find that dismissing me is not in your best interests, I name thee Kürbiskönig and bid thee reveal thyself Moon Aspect/ Luna responded with no hint of aggression, only promise, and a hint of boredom. The wolves snarled and seemed to stir at her insult, and Albus could feel the atmosphere change. Looking out at the field of their foes, Albus realized that he really truly missed Hadrian.

The cackling echoed everywhere now as in a swirl of the snow and then leaves a long thin macabre figure rose from the ground, it's cloak of shadows falling away as the moon's orange rays revealed their foe.

His eyes fell on the grinning orange face of a pumpkin for a second, the shields surrounding his mind flaring sharply as they tried to resist the crippling feeling of terror he suddenly felt. For the split second it took for Luna to move into his line of sight, her own harsh blue moonlight suddenly far preferable to whatever that had been.

Albus tried to process what he had just seen, as it was certainly no ordinary Pumpkin, but similar to a carved Jack O'lantern. Luna had called it the Hunter's moon. Racking his mind, Albus came up short. He had no memory of ever coming across that name Kürbiskönig, nor had he ever heard of this specific deity, perhaps it had not been seen on Mmidgard recently or ever? Whatever it was, it was far too powerful for him to look at comfortably, it seemed that being between two different Moon children wreaked havoc on one's sense of, well, existence.

Even I'lsensine had not strained his rationality like this

/Well well well. It seems my dear Uncle has been busy, a Moonchilde. How unlike him./ Luna stiffened.

/You recognize me?/ She seemed bewildered, though Albus could not understand why.

/Why wouldn't I?/ The pure sensation of giddy enjoyment that was saturating the being's' every word made it perhaps the scariest thing that Albus had encountered since this journey had begun. Ilsensine had not leaked the way this deity did. He had not enjoyed the interaction, this monstrosity clearly wanted to savor every moment.

/You are the Blue Moon afterall./ Albus gasped, if this was the aspect of the Hunter's moon, and it was calling Luna the Blue Moon, did that mean what he thought it did? It did make a disturbing amount of sense that she be labeled a blue moon, a blue moon was when two full moons took place in the same month, kind of like how Luna herself, had two selves. The first kind and generous, and the second more dangerous in nature. Most superstitions Albus had ever come across surrounding a Blue Moon were negative. Many were created out of fear that the blue moon was a sign from whatever deity they worshiped that the world was coming to an end, it was seen as an omen of chaos, nothing less. The title fit Ms. Lovegood a little too perfectly.

/We have come for the Lady./ Luna's light seemed to get colder. Sharper if that was possible as she stared down at the nine-foot-tall shadowy monstrosity glowing in its pale orange light.

/I am afraid I cannot let you do that cousin, I do so love the freedom that the eternal full moon gives me, instead of being at my power a single day a year, here I am corporeal for eternity. Who would want to give that up? We aren't all lucky enough to have a mortal half you know. / Kürbiskönig seemed to be a full immortal, who could only manifest when his moon showed, which here in a deathless land was all the time.

"And if we insist?' the Moon Princess said with a dangerous lit to her voice.

/I suppose I would be honored to show you why a moon-like you could never defeat your Largest cousin./ Suddenly the moon itself seemed to grow in the sky, no longer a small glowing ball in the sky, but now seemingly dominating an entire section of the sky, the Hunter's moon pulsed with orange fire as the wolves howled to their lord, their eyes glowing orange for a split second. Like a thousand orange fireflies flickering to light at once.

'This seems bad Luna.' Albus communicated feeling more nervous than he was prepared to admit, how did one fight a Moon?

'I will handle the largest of my cousins, and hopefully educate him as to the power of a Blue Moon, go and complete the mission, I will be fine, there is nothing you can do to aid me, your mistress on the other hand, she might be of help.'

'Now, my next step is to fight through thousands of undead, how droll.' Albus scoffed to himself, as he turned and faced the prison structure. And the literal hoard that faced him, even as he felt the prickle of two beings with divine blood powering up to fight it out.

Realizing that time was of the essence, Albus thought fondly of his apprentice and sent a feeling of gratitude to him as he began swirling his wand overhead.

"Ignitaris Infernortia!" like a spark of fire igniting napalm, the world around them suddenly blossomed into a firestorm. He felt the drain as he fed more and more of his magic to the storm, one diamond extinguished, a second dimmed as the storm grew to truly massive proportions. The fire consumed everything in its path, but perhaps more importantly, prevented any of the light of the moon from touching him.

See he suspected something, and this was his first chance to test it out. The moon deities or aspects can only see and interact with things under the light of the moon, that was why Luna's shield held, and that is also why she knew what happened to them, the moon is like their eye. So long as moonlight touches you, you are in their domain. So Albus hoped he would subtly be able to turn the tide because he could simply stop them from seeing him.

Luna and Kürbiskönig blurred, clashing undisturbed by the raging firestorm. The girl he noted used nearly see-through blades that made what looked like pale blue lunar illusion magic. The knowledge of which would have her carted off to Azkaban, or killed on sight, if she had been caught on midgard using said magic.

Albus began moving towards the base. Luna would, he hoped, prove capable and defeat her cousin? half-sibling? one-third-sibling? He really had no idea how divine families worked. Her casual use of the Moon Vault had shown him that while perhaps a third-year at human and mortal wizarding magic, she had plenty of other tricks up her seemingly immortal sleeve.

Flicking his wand, the ground grew, vines with spines meant to catch and snare slicing through anything and everything living or dead, preventing anything from getting even close to him.

A werewolf lunged at him, a silver needle erupting through his chest courtesy of a simple alchemical reaction.

Albus wondered what Nick was upto these days, it had certainly been a long time since he had talked to the old man.

"Extermiiate Candeleom" With a rush, a pulse of magic and flame exploded from him, washing over Luna and Kürbiskönig with no effect, but slamming into the host of gathered werewolves like a tsunami. They died in hundreds, and Albus could feel the darkness seep into him. He did loath dark magic, even when he did recognize the incredible utility of it at times.

Each step saw the size of his firestorm grow and grow, nearly burning down the entire clearing, even as the wards pushed the fire away from the edges of the massive structure's gates.

Albus kept on walking, until he came across a barrier of magical energy, he doubted that he would be able to do anything to it.

'Luna' Albus asked softly across their connection. The response that came back nearly drove him to his knees. In her current state doing battle with another moon deity, Albus suspected that she was less human than divine at the moment.

'WhAatTtT' the Moonchild's voice was like a gossamer of light, leaving long shadows in its wake.

'The wards if you would,' Albus barely had time to throw himself to the ground as his precognition screamed at him. As he threw himself to the ground, Albus felt the roar of magic as the Moon itself flashed from its orange color into a blue for a second as it shot a massive beam of light into the fort shattering the wards in a rush of blue fire.

Albus looked up at the fortress, shocked as the smoking remains of the wards dissolved as patches of glass-like magic were consumed by blue fire. Mondstral glowing as it dispersed any of the fire that came close to reaching its carrier.

Standing, Albus was once again glad that the magic had seen fit to de-age him as it were, he would not have liked the aches he would have felt had he done that same 'throwing-himself-to-the-ground-in-desperation-not-to-die' move before the start of this journey.

Cleaning a now dirt-covered Mondastral with a small flare of his will. Albus stalked towards the dark castle, the humor fading from him as he approached the trial ahead of him. Surely there was no room for error in a prison meant for Death herself?

---

Albus' boots clacked against the seemingly empty floors as he strode towards the main gate to the prison. He absent-mindedly touched the deathstick to the ground, sending a shockwave through the air and blasting all of the arrows back towards the gatekeepers he was approaching.

It seemed a bulk of the force was watching the two moon deities go at it, which he suspected was good for him, because vast improvements in his own martial abilities aside, he had little to no hope of defeating such a large force without Hadrian at his side.

Albus' mage sight activated with a flicker of his will, previously such magics would have taken far more active thought then they now did, habituated as he had become since their adventure had begun. Albus blinked while absentmindedly waving his hand to the left, impaling several vampires as they attempted to flank him as he turned their own momentum against them and transfigured the air they were moving into into shards of clear wood. Frowning as he stared down at the gateway, Albus was temporarily blinded as the entire prison erupted in a dazzling array of colors and glyphs as the wards and protections around the prison were revealed to Albus' wizened eyes.

It seemed he would have to resort to something unpleasant.

Raising his hand, Albus conjured a dagger and with a slash everything stilled. Dripping from the illusionary blade was blood. Blood that Albus was surprised to see a slight golden tint to. Coming to his senses he began a highly dangerous piece of dark magic he had learned when Grindelwald and he had been first venturing out into the world. It was a piece of magic that revolted him every time that he used it, but one that had saved countless lives in both the great war and the many battles he had participated in afterwards.

The chant that Albus began was no spell, instead, it was a poem:

"Okunabilirlik her zaman bu metinde bir sorun olmuştur ve bazı eski editörler kalıcı lekeler bırakan reaktifler kullanmıştır," Albus had no clue why the old German Muspilli had such power, but truly it was nothing to scoff at. The seemingly random line is one of tremendous power, but it was something foul, something that the use of made Albus shudder every time he had used it, each time promising himself, never again. The blood immediately began to writhe and with a gesture, the dagger was banished into the gate.

The gate's magic showed no immediate change, save for a small hole where the ethereal dagger had gone clean through. Slowly, Ablus noted the gate began to bleed. It was something that he knew would take a minute to completely have the maximum effect. The blood that dripped from the punctured gate seemed to be writhing, slowly but surely spreading.

Probably noticing his actions, one of the vampires, who was not dying at the edge of his still raging firestorm. Walked up to the growing mark on the gate and looked at it curiously. Tenderly it touched the blood, only to scream as the red consumed him before leaping to the next vampire.

The curse transformed his blood to blood-roaches, foul creatures, whose origins Albus now suspected was nothing short of directly from a divinity of plague. They consumed anything of organic material, multiplying almost immediately. They could consume anything, and strangely enough, they were not even hard to summon, they only required a bit of blood to get started. There had been a large debate over whether banning the spell would actually bring it more into the mainstream than just "scorched-earthing" any mention of the spell, and in the end the council of Arch-magi had decided to do that rather than risk more people looking for such a spell. As a result, he was one of the only ones alive to know how to use the spell, the knowledge of which was a death sentence.

As he watched the glowing wards and the vampire's life forces snuffed out with equal vengeance by the blood-roaches, Albus realized something he never would have realized before all of this; what had perplexed many young magi alike for years was how such a spell was possible, there were entire categories of spells that had 'no magic cost'. This was clearly a fundamental lack of understanding, it was not that there was no cost to such a spell, it was just that he never had to pay it. Simple as that realization seemed, it was not something that was talked about even among those at the Council of Archmagi. Whatever god of Pestilence that benefited from the sacrifice was more than happy to contribute to the effort it seemed.

It wasn't long before the mass of brilliant red cockroaches had grown to consume the entire gate and began consuming the fleeing vampires alive, realizing now was his chance to breach the prison, Albus's brought his hands together and like reality itself was changing for the fire, the firestorm changed shape, creating a long hallway directly to the actual prison.

Gathering his strength Albus began breathing deeply, the flames growing and falling to the pace of his breath. The already colossal flames he had summoned became visibly hotter as they began to melt through the protections and glass the sand beneath his feet. Sweat dripped from his brow as he continued his breathing, the heat overwhelming even the myriad of cooling and flame freezing charms that he had layered through his clothing.

/GOESLSERE/ Albus' voice boomed through the space of the battlefield, an ethereal echo that seemed to come from everywhere at the same time it came from nowhere. With a gesture, the firestorm became a hallway through the chaos of the battle that led him directly to the door to the prison.

As Albus approached what appeared to be a massive veil that served as the inner door to the prison, unbothered by any foe as his firestorm performed the function keeping him away from the minutiae of the battle, he saw something that made his blood freeze. The flames vanished as they touched the veil-like entrance. Frowning in concentration, Albus raised his hand and sent out a pulse of magic, making the many runes that made up the structure reveal themselves.

As he took a moment to stare at the crisscrossing lines that covered the entire surface of the veil, he realized that the entire prison was an anti-magic zone. His left hand twitched as the Supreme Mugwump realized that the prison was far more dangerous than any task he had performed since he had begun this journey. To enter here was certainly the most dangerous of all quests he could undertake, and only a fool would make that decision lightly. Out here he had his magic, in there, there was no guarantee as to what would happen. To his own surprise and shame, for the first time since he jumped in with two feet as he had slain Gor'zoth, Albus Percival Brian Wulfric Dumbledore found himself truly scared at what was to come.

---

Luna looked at her cousin with disdain, the blue aura that cloaked her fraying reality wherever the two types of moonlight interacted. There was no reason why the two moons should ever fight for dominion under the same sky. Nature itself abhorred it, but yet, here they were, the Hunters Moon, and the Blue Moon, nature itself screamed for resolution as the moon glowed half orange and half blue under their respective powers.

Reaching into her domain, Luna turned the pull of the Blue Moon against her cousin.

/You will bow!/ Luna's voice became the crashing of waves. The allure of the moon's power manifested tangibly, as for a second the moon pulsed blue and for just an instant all of the moon's subjects were free of the Harvest Moon's control. It took very little time for her cousin to begin resisting, the Orange creeping back as her cousin tried to reestablish his control. Luna began slaying as many of her cousin's loyal as she could, a hailstorm of the shimmering glasslike blades riddling the orange-eyed' weres in all directions.

Luna twirled her illusory blades, the blades distorting reality like it was nothing. She paused, reaching out to the weres that were under the blue moon.

/All shall be forgiven if you forsake the Harvest Moon and surrender to the Blue Moon./

/Forsake me and die Children of Autumn! Who gave you the right to roam free of your mortal coils? No Midgardian has done such a service to our people. In the Realm of Eternal Night, we are given a chance to live free of mortal shackles./ Luna snarled as she felt some of the wolves' eyes flicker orange even as many of the ones who had sided with her had remained loyal.

Luna's eyes suddenly crinkled in triumph at the snarl that spread across the other immortal's face.

Neither wasted any more time on pointless words, the moon's form's flickering as they clashed again, Luna's two illusionary blades flickering as the two demigods did battle under the conflicted moon.

---

Albus, having applied nearly every single passive boost spell that he had prepared and knew of, onto himself stared at the gateway with trepidation. There was a reason why it was so difficult to hold a mage for a long time. There are limits to how you can control someone's magic with wards. Mages, having more magic and likely more control than the average wizard or magic-user, along with traditionally far greater knowledge and the requisite creativity to use said magic were rarely limited by "normal" confinement.

Most knew that spellfire, you could stop from manifesting, but a mage's internal magic, you could not. It was a given that when a sufficiently powerful mage had a chance, they would free themselves eventually from whatever prison you held them in if they really wanted out.

Albus really wanted to free Lady Death from this prison. It was why things like magic suppression cuffs were nothing but a bit of theater no mage would be limited by such a rudimentary restriction of their external magic.

So, as prepared as he was going to be, Albus stepped through the gate.

The first thing that Albus felt was the uncomfortable pressure of the wards on his magic. It was like metaphysical claustrophobia. Albus knew he was experiencing it especially bad as he had not had reason to 'keep a lid on his magic' as it was. As Hadrian had mentioned, many of the habits he had formed such as limiting the range of his aura had been since the start of this adventure discarded, and while he suspected between the two of them, that he would be far more capable of dealing with this trial, for Hadrian by his nature not likely to accept being so restricted with the grace of someone whose entire life had been so monitored as Albus.

Reaching his hand out, he concentrated on changing the form of the deathstick back into the more traditional elder wand form it had been famous for, and to his disappointment, the deathstick seemed to struggle, slowly shrinking, before springing back into the staff form that it had when he entered.

It was unsurprising, and perhaps fortuitous that he had entered the prison with the Deathstick in it's staff form.

Striding forward, Albus, did his best to push his magic as far out as he could manage, against the creatures of the night, every millisecond of warning before the attack mattered if you wanted to remain alive.

The halls were surprisingly sterile. Gray stone lining the walls as the mage cautiously moved forward, the 2 meters of control he could exert with his magic against the heavy ward all of the foresight he would be able to get in such a place.

It seemed that the prison was surprisingly under-garrisoned. With a frown, Albus tried to feel for some hint of why this was the case, why would such a prison be so underguarded? Albus kept moving towards where he had felt the presence of Lady Death. Cut off as he was from the greater magical web, he had only the direction he had felt as he had entered to go off of.

Albus's thoughts were cut off as his magic screamed at him, and he leaped to the side to avoid a clawed hand thrusting through the space that his head had previously occupied. With a growl, the much younger old man leapt to his feet, his staff brandished in front of him, the tapered end facing an interested-looking vampire.

The vampire that faced him seemed rather 'aristocratic' than the ones that he had encountered so far. The vampire had long blonde hair that reached the creature's waist in a manner that a Malfoy would have been immensely jealous of.

"It appears my lord was right about you Wizard, you are more than meets the eye. Cut-off from your magic, what hope do you have against even a servant of the house of Dracuul?" The vampire's smooth voice would have enchanted nearly anyone, but luckily, a Master of Occlumancy was not so easily fooled.

"I come here for Lady Death, I have no quarrel with you." Albus figured he should attempt to parlay with the elegant vampire.

"Ah, but that is where you are wrong. You wizard are under the mistaken assumption that all you seek to do is rid this place of evil, what you do not understand is that we chose this. We chose to come here away from all of you. Where you come from you may be the hero, but here it is you that seeks to destroy our safe haven, our very existence, our way of life and or peaceful existence, and while under normal circumstances, I suspect you would prove more than a match for one such as myself, here, in my lord's domain, you will not find us such easy prey." The vampire blurred as it crossed the distance between itself and Albus, fangs extended as it rushed to feast on Albus' blood.

It was perhaps with an uncomfortable mix of emotions that Albus found himself thanking Hadrian in his mind as his body spun, and he clashed with the vampire. He was but a very very very augmented middle-aged man inside the Prison of Death, yet he was able to hold his own against the might of a very skilled Vampire.

It was not the protections or magics that he had cast to augment himself that saved him, it was the damnable Memoriastium that prevented his demise. The Death Stick spun in his hand, batting away both of the clawed hands before erupting out the back of the attacking vampire in a single fluid movement. In an instant, the fight was over. The impaled the vampire staring at him with a look of deep fear and self-loathing that shook the Wizard to the core. It was the face of someone who had failed to save what mattered most in the world.

Albus never wanted to be a hero, but it was in part a result of his lack of desire to be so, a role that had been thrust upon him for years. It was a role that he had struggled to live up to. How many times had he stepped down from his roles of power? Albus knew he would always have to do what was best over what was easy.

Still, Albus was a pragmatist, sometimes things were too important to let lie, too dangerous to let live. The line of right and easy was thinner than a razor's edge, and there were moments in the war with Grindelwald where the enemy had looked at him like he was a monster, but he had known that was what was right, and it was certainly not easy.

Shouldn't this be the same? Shouldn't freeing the literal goddess of death in this place be the right thing to do?

Yet here he was, he was the unknown, potentially destroying an entire civilization of which he knew very little about. What he knew came not from research and extensive evidence and moral/philosophical structure, but from the sparse amount he had seen, a dream from an entity that he had dreamt of, and a questionable demigod student of his.

As the red eyes of the vampire faded, Albus wondered if what he was doing was what was right or what was easy, and if there was ever even an answer to the simplistic questions he had asked himself in his youth.

---

Albus had encountered several more vampires, none of which were remotely as elegant as the first one he had encountered, but all of which had the same desperation to stop him that he had seen. It was unsettling, on one hand, thanks to the Memoriastiums knowledge of how to wield the Deathstick, Albus had had only a few close calls, but it was without a doubt a very conflicted Albus that found himself in front of what appeared to be the main gate to some kind of throne room.

Frowning at the lack of guards, and the clearly unlocked door, Albus took a deep breath and pushed the door open. The hall was massive, nearly the size of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Stepping forward, Albus knew there was something not right about this situation. Suspended in chains of pure Argatham, held in what to Albus' surprise seemed to be a prison of glowing golden gossamers floated Lady Death.

"I knew you would come Albus," Lady Death said urgently, "Free me so that we can slay Dracula and reunite my Hallows and end the abomination that is this ream." Lady Death's voice was nothing short of enthralling. It did not change the fact that Albus was not sure that he wanted to end the entire realm. From what he had seen it was literally an entire world full of people who just wanted to live.

"I am not sure that that is the best choice -" Albus began before freezing.

While it seemed like there was no one else in the room, looks could be deceiving. Stepping forward, Albus slowly approached the prison, only to freeze at the muted pulse he was getting from the Hallows. A pulse he remembered when he had gotten the second Hallow.

"I know you are here Dracula," Albus said to the seemingly empty room. Suddenly the entire room changed. Dozens of Gargoyles and Vampires lined the edges of the room, crossbows and pikes all pointed at him, and by the cell of magic stood one of the most beautiful beings Albus had ever seen.

Dracula was at the same time both exactly as Albus had imagined him, and also not at all how Albus had imagined him.

He stood, regal beyond measure, a youthful face with nearly elvine features, dark red eyes pulling any who glanced at them into their prismic depths. On his shoulders flowed the shimmering Cloak of Death. The red lining matching the robes that the vampire wore perfectly, the glimmer of the golden trim showing any that looked at him of the influence and power that he commanded.

"Well met slayer of Il'sensagron." Albus blinked. This was not what he had been expecting.

"Well met Prince of Night," Albus said with a slight bow. There was no need to be rude after all.

"This was not how I had hoped to make your acquaintance. You, my dear sorcerer, are a very difficult man to kill." Albus blinked again, lightly biting his cheek to see if this was a dream or not.

"Thank you?" Albus was more than a little embarrassed that that had come out as a question. Taking a deep breath, he settled himself. He was the Supreme Mugwump, and this was like any other political meeting. It even had all of the ill-wishers that he had grown accustomed to.

"I apologize, you surprised me, Prince, I did not expect to make your acquaintance so early, nor did I expect such a warm welcome," Albus said, glancing at the rather large host of gargoyles and Vampire elite.

"You have been quite the adversary Albus Dumbledore, tales of your adventures have spread even here in the Night." The Vampire Lord seemed to respect him, Albus was not going to lie – he was confused at what was happening, he had come expecting a fight, not a conversation, and if Lady Deaths shocked expression was any indication, this was as unexpected for her as it was for him.

"Albus, do not hesitate! He is trying to fo-" Whatever she had been attempting to say to him was cut off a silencing ward was activated around her prison.

"Now that that is taken care of, and as interesting as the various tales of your adventures I have been regaled with as of late have been, why may I ask, are you here?" Dracula's ruby red eyes seemed to be drinking in Albus' entire form as the immortal Prince of the Night waited for his answer.

"I am on a quest to save Midgard from the demons," Albus said. Dracula's eyebrows rose in a perfect arch.

"It has been more years than I would care to count since I have met a mortal who can speak nothing but the truth, and yet not a lie." The Prince of Darkness responded interestedly. "Yet that answer leaves me with more questions than I began with; What demons do you speak of? What do you seek in the Lands of Never Day? And why are you attacking the Castle of my bride?"

Albus frowned again, he doubted that the Prince of Night would appreciate his own claim on his bride, nor the need for the third Hallow, nor any of the other answers he had to his questions, so he did what all politicians do, answered the question that he actually felt like answering while ignoring the rest.

"Surely you are aware that the veil had been pierced?" At this Dracula stilled, looking more like one of Michelangelo's statues than any "living" being.

"I was not aware." Dracula's voice was thin as a razor, and Albus suspected he had successfully avoided the topic as to why he was there.

"I am aware of what you did to my friend Krampus however, and before you start on any conspiracy theories, he was a demon that remained after the sundering of realms, far from a new invader to our realm."

"Do you know the name Gorzoth?" Albus shuddered as the Lord of fear's name was invoked. Somehow, the name seemed to make the shadows twist in the torchlight. The vampires glanced around in surprise even as their Prince's eyes snapped open wide at the name of the Lord of Fear's name.

In an instant, Dracula was behind Albus, his fangs bared as he snarled in anger.

"I would advise you, invader, to not invite a Lord of Fear into my realm. For I promise you he will neither help you nor aid you in whatever your goals are." If Albus was not mistaken, Dracula knew the Lord of Fear.

"Well you will be happy to know that he won't be coming, he is slain." It was the minuscule flaring of the vampire's nostrils that gave away the Prince of Darkness' disbelief.

"You lie." Albus heard the doubt in the vampire's voice.

"I am quite sure that you know, as well as I do, that I have spoken no lie since entering your presence, even on Midgard your ability to know when a lie is told to you is famous," Albus said calmly.

Dracula stepped back, clearly, in thought, Albus saw his chance to further drive home his point.

"Do you know that Krampus was using children to build weapons? Weapons he himself had admitted were for the demon invasion?" Dracula's eyebrow twitched.

"Krampus made weapons and items for many, including myself, but that is beside the point, as the second two questions which you have not yet answered are perhaps the more relevant ones, so I will ask you again, this time even more plainly; why are you in the Realm of Eternal Night, and what do you want with my bride to be?" Albus suspected that the Prince of Darkness was a bit out of patience.

"I have come for the cloak." Dracula stilled.

"Surely you must have known that I would not give it freely?" There was a hint of incredulousity to the vampire Lord's voice that put a tinge of guilt in Albus's heart.

"I was aware," Albus said quietly.

The vampires surrounding them snarled fangs bared as they realized the extent of Albus' treachery.

"But truthfully, what else was I supposed to think when you turn mothers into rabid attack dogs in an attempt to scare me off?" Albus said with a tinge of heat, "Surely the Prince of Darkness is above such petty scare tactics?" Albus was suddenly unsure of himself as Dracula's face went blank.

"It seems I was wrong to think differently of you. You midgardians are unchanging! I drink blood, so surely I must have turned some infants' mothers? This, this right here, is the very reason why we chose to abandon Midgard. You come here seeking to attack my home, to kill my subjects, to free the very being that would see the end of all that we have worked for. All of you mortals so quick to portray us as the heartless, vile, villainous monstrosities you wish we were, when it is you who are the monsters!" Albus took a mental step back at the vampire's rage.

"It seems that you need an education in who the true villains of your stories are…" Dracula's eyes glowed and Albus found himself helpless as he was thrust into a memory.

---

A manor on a hill, a doctor who only ever had helped the people around him, worked to create a body for his son's soul, trapped in a phylactery using the bodies of the dead he created a body so that his son's soul could live again. Albus felt the hope of the father, the desire to give his son the chance at life that he knew he would be denied, trapped in the phylactery as he was.

When finally the body was complete, the doctor followed the steps, giving life to the body with the soul of his son. The father and son enjoyed the time that they had gotten back, all the while the doctor saved life after life, treated malidy after malidy, knowing that he had to give back to the people whose loved ones had saved his loved one.

Their lives were filled with love and laughter, until one day, one of the staff discovered the notes and laboratory that had helped him create the body for his child.

In that moment everything changed from dream to nightmare.

Villagers with torches and pitchforks attacked the manor, and the boy watched as his father, Lord Frankenstein died, killed by the hands of the villagers he had saved.

---

Another memory swirled into place as Albus found himself in another setting, a forest this time.

A lone wolf wandered the land, howling at the moon, the moon watched, and one day the moon howled back. Albus watched as the silver wolf arrived and left after every full moon. A brilliant silver wolf that glowed with the light of the moon came and mated with the wolf. The great silver wolf lead the female to a wolf pack. They had but a single pup, Albus watched as the pup grew and did wolf things, worshiped the moon, hunted, enjoyed its time with its pack. The young wolf was incredibly beautiful, and soon the entire valley prospered in natural harmony. Slowly the young wolf grew in strength until one day it became Alpha of the pack.

Albus watched as Wizards, enamored by the beauty of the valley and forest and its bounty moved into the land. But with their arrival, things changed, the wizards hunted the wolves, killed them sometimes to protect their livestocks, sometimes for their pelts, sometimes for fun.

On the day they killed the silver wolf, the white moon raged, and in its rage, cursed them with all of the barbarity that they had shown its child. And thus the first werewolf was born.

The weres experienced the very fate they had inflicted on the moon child, they were hunted to protect human families, sometimes for their pelts, and sometimes for fun.

Memory after memory told the same story, the sheer injustice that 'might-makes-right' had done to all of the magical creatures whose existence and purpose seemed contrary to the norm.

'You see wizard, the purpose of the Realm of Eternal Night was to be a haven. A haven from all of the beings who would hunt us for the crime of our mere existence. One would think that a wizard of all things would understand that. Here in this realm, is one of the only places where the "dark" is embraced, the "dark" is accepted. Where 'undead' can live freely.``

"What of the Snow Leopard weres? The non magical villages I have seen dotting the landscape, They surely did not sign up to be cattle." Albus said,

"Grow up. Do you not raise livestock on midgard? Do you not take beings whose intelligence you have little respect for and use their lives for the betterment of your own people? Do you have such judgemental views for yourselves as well wizard?" Dracula's tone was after the memories he had shown him a fair bit more justified than he had expected.

"You imagine the land of Eternal Night to be a place filled with savages, with necromancers, with weres and vampires, what you do not understand, Slayer of the Illithid People, is that in creating a world where mortals run free, where Wizards and Witches dominate the land, you have in the process destroyed the homes and lives of all of us, monsters. Our realm is our haven from you, not the other way around. It is a place for even the lich and the undead to find a place where we can exist free of enslavement to whatever Darklord seeks to use us, free from whatever hunter wishes to hunt us, a place free from death. If we did not have the cloak that you seek, do you think our realm would remain hidden from her full presence? If we did not imprison the avatar of Death sent to find us, that seeks to bind us, would we even be free to exist, we the forsaken?" Dracula drove his point in by revealing his true face, four-inch fangs, rippling hair, bat wings, and all in a move that nearly made Albus jump out of his own skin.

"Even now you can not hide how much we scare you, how much we revolt you," there was something about Dracula's speech that held so much raw emotion, that Albus couldn't help but feel dirty. The fight with the lich in Svartalfheimr had been easy, it was trying to kill them, and so killing it was not just fair, it was right, but here? In the land created to escape beings like him, was it right for him to conquer the land, kill Dracula to take up a mantle he didn't know if he wanted let alone deserved?

Albus didn't know why but he was suddenly remembering a lesson he had learned from Nicholas.

"Albus," the Sorcerer had said, "Society is built off of people defining limits, and when such a time arises that society needs a Hero, one is born. They are not born limited to the needs of society but rather they are born to overcome said limits. But, therein lies the issue, for once their duty is complete, and society was saved, what was the role and place of a hero then? What could someone whose very purpose was to overcome the limits of society do after society had been saved? They are now an obstacle to the very thing they tried to create." At the time Albus had thought that Nicholas had been talking about centennial wizards like himself and Gellert. Now he realized this so vastly understated the impact that beings like Demigods had on society and the trajectory of reality.

What was a force meant to break the laws of reality to do once its need had elapsed? Or worse where it wasn't wanted. In that way, beings like Albus and Dracula had more in common than Albus and the average wizard did. Dracula sighed.

"If it would leave us in peace I would even surrender the goddess of death to you, for so long as I have the cloak, I am free of any interference on my people, but the truth is this. I simply do not trust you," and the worst part was Albus knew why.

He really did understand, and while Dracula would likely never know or understand the sheer crisis of purpose that he had given the mage, it would be a long time before Albus would be able to forget the implications of this conversation.

---

Kürbiskönig, cackled as macabre scarecrows each with a pumpkin head rose from the ground and began to slaughter any blue eyed werewolves they could get to. Fear tinged the air even as the weight of the moon pressed down on all on the battlefield.

Luna's form cackled as twelve colors, each paler than what it should be, blossomed from within the blue nimbus that she stood in.

A peach color tinge blossomed from her as she summoned the power of the Blue Moon. The blue moon that for want of a single day would have been the Hunters moon, and she unmade the pumpkin headed scarecrows.

Kürbiskönig stared in shock. As his creations were unmade by his cousin.

/What is this?/ it was a fairly well known and accepted rule that no deity could outright unmake another deities creation, they could kill it, they could turn it inside out, but unmaking it was impossible for any but the hand that made it. And Luna Moonchilde had just done exactly that.

/Do you know why the blue moon is superior to all of my cousins?/ Luna's voice now held the same guttural tone her cousins 'voice', if you could even call it such, had.

/Because in it is all of the potentials for every moon, all of the possibilities of all of the moon's powers just not quite. No moon could ever defeat a Blue Moon because a blue moon is simply an irregular moon. In me exists the entirety of you and all of my eleven cousins, and yet, not quite./

The pale peach color blended into the orange of the harvest moon until there was no hint of where the Blue Moon began and where the Harvest Moon ended, and suddenly Luna was behind Kürbiskönig, a long glimmering blade erupting out of his thin frame as all at once, the moon turned blue.

Luna stared at the fallen figure of her cousin. He had fought valiantly, but in the end, she had beaten him. For the truth of a blue moon is that it is not part of the 12 moons, rather it was an anomaly, an extra, a moon that but for a few days would be as it should be. In many ways that more than any of its other characteristics suited the blonde girl, for in her uncountable lives as a planeswalker, she was always an anomaly, for what value remains in predictability after trying everything countless times?

/Know this little cousin, there must always be a moon in the Realm, once Hunters Moon, now forever the Blue Moon./ with his part said, her Cousin Kürbiskönig, the Harvest Moon, faded, and for a single second the entire realm was plunged into darkeness.

Then in an instant she felt it. The Mantle of the Moon of Eternal Night fell onto her shoulders. There was no waxing and waning, no balance, just fullness, complete sight over the entire realm, power like she had never felt before filled her. She felt her father's alien sight flick to her for an instant and it made her stomach churn when she felt something close to pride from it as it's attention turned elsewhere after barely a moment.

As she adapted to seeing everything, she saw through a window the sight of the Headmaster surrounded by vampires, magicless.

Oh. This was going to be fun.

---

Albus stood in front of the Prince of Darkness, contemplating the nature of his quest, at what point did the ends justify the means, the seedling of uncertainty he had felt when they had helped commit genocide against the illithid had grown into an entire forest of doubt.

"What if I did not let her change anything about this place? What if I helped you maintain your freedom? I see no reason for us to be enemies" Albus said quietly.

"Our kind have always been enemies, for it is not in either of our natures to allow the others existence." Dracula said almost dismissively. "Why would the Goddess of Death listen to you? Any bond or control you think you have over an aspect of the universe, let me assure you is nothing but arrogance and manipulation."

Suddenly Albus feels the wards around the prison fail, and all at once Albus' magic is under his control again. Sighing as his magic uncurls like a roused dragon, Albus lets his eyes glow a little as Mondstral flares the stone glowing in a nimbus of purple power, revealing the Resurrection stone, the Deathstick once again able to change form with the wards no longer restrict the external magic.

Dracula's eyes flash as he appears in front of Albus, his glowing sword lashing out at the wizards neck even as all of the vampires release their bolts directly at Albus at once. There is no escape from every one of the attacks. And yet there need be no escape when none of the attacks have a chance of landing a hit.

Spinning in a circle, Mondstral flares with silver light as he deflects the dozen crossbow bolts and blocks Dracula's strike with the deathstick, a small ripple of power passing through the air as the two artifacts were pitted against each other.

Albus feels the unbridled joy of the Hallows as they are closer to being rejoined than they have been in an age, and even as he twists the floors into bindings to hold the dozens of vampires and gargoyles and lock Dracula for a split second in place, Albus knows he has come to the precipice. In a single move, he could have it all, he could have the cloak, free the avatar of Death and also neuter the threat that the entire realm poses on Midgard.

It is what the council of Arch-magi would do, it is what the Ministry would have him do, and yet, if there was one thing that Albus had learned since he and Hadrian had begun this entire journey it was that the majesty of the magical world was how varied it truly was. How many different lands, beings, and even perspectives were to be found.

That perhaps the worst thing to happen to Midgard was the statute of secrecy and everything that they forgot because of it, and so Albus made his choice.

Albus did not kill Dracula. He ignored the cry of the Hallows, they were his not the other way around and he ignored the aggravated visage of the Lady Death her words silenced behind the barrier that contained her, as he conjured a chair for the Prince.

"Now I could kill you, but you had the same opportunity, and instead chose to talk. You opened my eyes to something that I would never have understood otherwise. So if you do not mind, I would love to continue the conversation." Dracula to his credit sat down, looking every bit the Prince of Darkness that he was, a curious look on his hypnotic features.

Albus wouldn't lie, it was nice to do things his way rather than the more wands blazing method that Hadrian preferred. There was more than one way to skin a cat as the adage went.

---

Luna strode into the hall expecting to find a battleground and what she instead found was nearly two dozen vampires and gargoyles standing guard idly as Albus discussed policy with Dracula of all people with Lady Death still in her prison glaring at the two men.

She blinked in surprise, this was certainly unexpected, and she was fairly sure that as unexpected things went, her assuming the role of Moon of Eternal Night was fairly high on the improbable list.

Still, it was nice that the headmaster felt like talking it out rather than just fighting, surely that got boring after a while.

Skipping up to the two, she frowned as she sat down on one of the conjured chairs only for it to transform into a rather fancy-looking throne. Both men just stopped and stared at her in surprise.

"Ah, the planeswalker, I did not know you had returned to the Realm," the Prince of Darkness said lightly.

"Yup." Luna did love popping her p's, it always made the sound much more fun.

"Luna, did you change your tiara into a crown?" Albus said curiously

"No, it probably just happened after I killed Kürbiskönig and became the Moon of Eternal Night." Albus and Dracula gaped at her for a second.

"Ah, congratulations?" Albus said clearly a bit confused as to how he should even feel about his student claiming a divine mantle.

"Honestly the thing that is most unnerving is the feeling akin to pride my father had for me in that moment, it is never a comfort when one's eldritch divinity parent feels something akin to pride over an accomplishment of yours." Luna said, a cold hint entering her voice as the 'other' personality bubbled up.

"So, what are you two discussing?" the demigoddess asked curiously.

"Albus and I were just discussing the conditional capitulation of the Realm of Eternal Night, and the conditions in which we would do so willingly," Dracula said in a deadpan.

---

In the end, the demands of Dracula were simple, upon becoming the Master of all three Hallows, Albus should order the aspect of Death to uphold the autonomy of the Realm of Eternal Night, and to maintain its existence unhindered by the shackles of death, and to not interfere within its borders.

Truth be told, Albus suspected that that is all that they really wanted in the first place, they wanted to exist, and if He could make that happen and deal with the ire of the very angry death goddess that they had imprisoned then by his standard Albus had dealt with two major problems with one agreement.

While he was less than happy to lose the Utility of the Cloak, Dracula was content being able to call on the aid of one such as Albus should the Realm ever be in jeopardy.

There was another issue however, Dracula was not the only ruler of the Realm, the other princes, specifically the Lich King, and the Prince of Blood had both proven to be obstacles in Dracula's efforts for real reform and establishing trade between other realms. They would both need to be deposed. Dracula had also shared that it was likely one of them who had turned the were cubs mother as he would not have risked such an incident with what was essentially a foreign dignitary.

Albus agreed to kill both the Prince of Blood and the Lich King in return for Dracula's support. They had signed a binding magical contract to the effect to make it official. If he was honest the entire affair with the Prince of Darkness had felt more like an ICW negotiation than anything else and Albus was not sure about how he felt about that.

Albus stood unsure, he had no idea what was supposed to happen and was content to wait for Dracula to make the first move. Dracula removed his cloak, the darkness rippled and the red cloak became a swirling tapestry of gray black white and gold as the Cloak's true form was revealed.

"I surrender the Cloak of Death, willingly to its rightful Master."

---

Rath'gar and Hóvihar had nearly died, the entire cliff that they had been on reduced to molten slag, only the translucent dome had protected them from utter annihilation. It was perhaps one of the more unusual things that the goblin prince had experienced.

The two had sat on the floating sleigh and watched from afar as the forest surrounding the tower was sundered and the moon came to the ground to fight another moon. They had seen hordes of undead consumed in a firestorm, and two moons fight, only their lack of ability to really see what was happening protecting their minds from shattering.

Rath'gar had seen the sky flicker a variety of colors and he had seen the moon in the sky change from orange to blue, and all of those things bothered him less than the pulse of purple that had erupted from the castle that they had been attempting to invade. Something changed very fundamentally in that moment, and had he not been so close, he suspected he would have simply assumed it was one of those feelings that everyone has. That feeling like something that was no longer is, or that something big just happened somewhere to someone.

But seeing it happen first hand, Rath'gar had to laugh at the notion that Albus was any less a magnet for the impossible than Hadrian, Rath'gar suspected that if he managed survived the entire quest songs would be sung about him, Rath'gar the Survivor, perhaps? Rath'gar the Companion? Whatever epithet he earned, he just knew that in part it would have to do with the two sorcerers.

---

There was a flash as suddenly all three Hallows glowed violet, the cloak glowing as it wrapped itself around Albus. It was in that single instance that Albus felt something change in him. It was like whatever he was before he was now so much more. It was akin to realizing that before you existed only in two dimensions and now you exist in three.

There was nothing that Albus could do to accurately describe the experience, but it was without a doubt, the single most overwhelming feeling he had experienced. For in a second, every single being's death was revealed to him, every being's existence ended with a part of him, and just like that the panic set in.

The realization that there was a chance the power could consume him, that in that minute he had lost his own fated death. That he would undoubtedly be bound to the task never to know when or if his next great adventure would begin. The world swam as he realized their failure to understand the sheer magnanimity of the universe and the responsibility that they had taken upon themselves to stop the demon invasion.

Like he was falling upwards the reality of their situation set in, there was no constant for him for expansion of his reality had breached all mortal comprehension every part of him was set adrift and as he prepared himself for oblivion the knowledge that success and failure in this instance were the same and that the madness that Il'sesine had promised him and Hadrian was their fate, the madness that Luna experienced the mixed personalities of mortal and immortal in one shell was to be his fate, he let go falling upwards as he accepted his fate.

Only to feel the ascent into madness taper, holding onto rationality was a single thread, stronger than strongest of mithril was the connection the Spider Queen had woven for Hadrian and himself, and like his conscious had been attached to one of the muggle elastic bands he slammed back into his own body with a gasp.

His breaths became steadier and steadier as he felt a hand on his shoulder, Albus looked up half expecting to see Hadrian looking down at him, only to see the curious face of Luna Lovegood staring down at him.

"It is always that overwhelming the first time you experience the settling of a mantle Headmaster, don't worry, all of the things you fear will only come true if they are meant to be, that if nothing else should give you more peace than anything I could say. You now exist outside of Fate, you are now something more, as to what you are, I suppose only time will tell." Luna's response was both comforting and terrifying at the same time.

Closing his eyes, Albus felt for the first time, silence. The Hallows whose whispers he had never been free of were gone, they had no will except his own now. The calm understanding that he could likely do anything, that the law of mortals was no longer his to obey for his purpose was now something so much more than what he had been set into his mind. So much of Hadrian's personality became clear to him in a second. If this is what had happened the very moment he had been given the spark of Elvish magic as a child, Hadrian's entire life, his drive, his attitude, his disregard for the rules, his thirst, his very being made so much more sense to Albus then it ever had.

When he stood he saw that his beard, once white, and recently gray had gone completely brown.

With a gesture, he conjured a full-length mirror and saw a stranger. Glowing purple eyes, the color of the resurrection stones' opalescent depths stared back at him, even as the dark gray cloak swirled around his figure, the elder wand and resurrection stone completing the very image that he and Gellert had grown up imagining. Albus stared at the mirror in surprise and the Master of Death stared back at him. He looked like he was in his mid-forties, for a wizard that was essentially the peak of youth. The touch of gray that adorned his temples was more a mark of his wisdom than a mark of age.

Albus turned to the two other occupants of the room. Dracula stood gaping at the wizard, even as Luna was smiling at him encouragingly.

The thing that sat with him was it was not violence that won him the position, rather it was by being himself. Yes the warrior inside of him was as much a part of him as it was Hadrian, but there was little to no doubt in the mind of Albus Dumbledore that like, the part of him that he valued the most was not the warrior, but the scholar, the part of him that joined Hadrian on this quest to find knowledge. That part was the part that he would recognize as the true victor in the quest for the Hallows. The Hallows had a legacy of violence, death, and bloodshed, and Albus found it particularly fitting that they were united without spilling a drop of it.

There was still one thing for him to do, and he doubted very much that it was going to be pleasant.

---

A/N:

Hello readers,

I know, it's a miracle, I updated. I am not dead, I am just really swamped with RL at the moment, but honestly, not a day goes by where I don't think about the Arcanist. I have big plans and I hope you will be patient with me as we discover them together. I know some of you are frankly disappointed with the update schedule, or lack of one, but that is going to be how it is until it isn't. Now one of the things that really keeps me going, and makes me prioritize this is you guys. Every time I get an email saying someone commented and left a review, it reminds me that while real life is busy, it is for you guys too, and the fact that you took a moment to review and share thoughts, even if it was just "nice story, update soon" is appreciated. (Before all of you send me that four-word comment, please know actual reviews are appreciated so much more.)

When I started this, I never imagined that I would be able to write 25k words forget a 25k chapter like this one. I know that this is especially large, but the truth is I know there are a lot of people waiting, including myself, to get to Midgard, and while we are close, we still have a solid arc to go, and rushing that would kind of make everything pointless. What I am hoping is that I can double up on plot in these kinds of chapters and we can actually get to it sooner rather than later.

Now onto our scheduled A/R or Author's Rant….

One of the things that I am dying to know is what you guys think of Luna? I have read a million Lunas and they all have some elements of the same feel. One of the things that was really hard for me was how do I deal with such a fan-favorite character? How do I bring news of Midgard while not having it be like OK, LAZY AUTHOR ALERT. It is my hope that everyone felt suitably horrified by what she experiences. Literally an entire life every time you sleep, I don't know about you but that sounds terrifying to me. Also her being a moonchilde just made sense to me. Not only does it explain her weirdness, but it gives me the chance to explore a split luna in the coming chapters.

One of the elements I really am going to look to explore is the difference between mortal and immortal. Hadrian has his divine spark which without giving a lot away he's going to explore, Albus is now the Master of Death (Something I haven't ever read before, so if you know of a fic that's done it please shoot it my way thx.) and Luna is the Moon of Eternal Night. I hope that that makes it at least a bit interesting.

Ok, so I have to know…. How many people were surprised that I didn't make a kickass scene with Albus fighting Dracula? Honestly, I had the entire scene in my head, it was going to be AWESOME. Imagine how cool it would be if only the hollows worked in the prison? If it was Albus with the two offensive Hallows, versus the defensive Hallow in the hands of Dracula, he was going to escape and it was going to be this whole thing where in the end, he realizes he can "trust" Albus to control death and that he is the only one who can, but to be honest, one of the reasons that I split apart Albus and Hadrian was to give them the chance to become their own characters and have their own character arcs and development and so that when they come back together there is some point to the experience. Key to the character of Albus is his pencil pushing job side has given him the skills to negotiate through conflict. A skill any dungeon master will tell you is as important to ending conflict as swords are. Now if you want to see what the fight scene entailed I can be bribed by like 100 reviews…so if you work together, I can be convinced to post it on my profile as a what if… or something.

Now I am sure a bunch of you are going to be a bit confused by Luna's description of realms traveling and will be like woah, Omega wth are you doing – making overly complex systems of character building. If you think about il'sensine for a second… you will totally see this is already there… his whole avatar – was the point the needle that is the concept of madness interacts with the paper that is reality… was he more than his avatar yes… when he took that form did it limit his presence beyond that – also yes… this is apparently how dnd does planes and stuff. I thought it was pretty in line with what we have already seen so I tried to at least set some worldbuilding up. To be honest – if no one got it it's still ok, it is kind of not meant to be understood anyway.

Ok, another thing – who is excited for Alfheimr? If you have ideas that aren't like Hadrian should have 3 wives or something… we can discuss it.

Speaking of discussing it… here is the link to my apples of not-accord.. Disco /GjSMwrvXdw Feel free to join it- we tend to be a fairly cool group. It's low maintenance and I will often put access to the chapters before they get released. You get to talk about ideas if you feel like it with me, and a bunch of other fun stuff like concept art… if you are interested come visit…

Happy New Year, here is hoping for more updates from me.

Thank you for the continued support and engagement.

MrOmega573