Here is the new chapter for you guys, hope you enjoy.
It should be out on 10.09.2019. If it is not you can flame me in reviews.
Chapter one and two got revisited, don't worry nothing important changed.
If there are any beta readers who would like to help me, please pm me.
Disclaimer: I don't own HP or PJO.
Chapter 14. The Underworld
After finally settling back in her room, Diana spend the next few days with her family. They mostly discussed how Diana's trip went and what she and Alya are planning to do now.
As Diana couldn't tell her parents about the Underworld, she decided to just tell them that she will most likely go back to training. She didn't want to lie to them, but some things are better left unsaid, plus who knows what the community would do to them if they found out that there are normal wizards and witches who know about them.
So for now she kept her mouth shut and went back to her room.
Grabbing the stack of files that Ragnok send her, she laid down on her bed and decided to finally read them.
Most of the files spoke of how the community was formed and how it works. Diana was glad that her race helped with forming it so she and Alya might have an easier time talking with them.
The files told her that the community was formed about two hundred years after the creation of official ministries of magic. It looks like bigots existed even then... Then it spoke how every race that wanted to join needed to choose a leader that would sit on the council.
The council itself while important, doesn't have too much authority over the races. It looks like they only decide what to do about those that try to leak the existence of Underworld to the outside world and rule over all of the districts.
For Diana it is quite understandable as why would one race listen to another. Luckily, all of the members of the community know that they cannot leak it's existence so everything should go smoothly in there.
She also found out that there are a lot of squibs in there. Well, now Diana knows where they all go after their families throw them out. Funny that members of the noble families that always talk about the blood purity now live with creatures.
When Diana finally got through all of the files that spoke of the community itself, the doors to her room opened and in walked Alya.
"You walked away after the dinner pretty fast, something wrong?" asked Alya curiously.
Shaking her head Diana laid her head down on the pillow and put the files next to her, "Nah... I just wanted to finally go through the files that Ragnok send me."
Alya nodded and laid down next to her friend, Diana blushed a little, but kept quiet, "The Underworld?"
"The Underworld," was Diana's only response.
"You are irritated," declared Alya without even asking. Diana turned her head towards Alya and frowned, "Don't give me that look, I know you since we were 9 years old so I think that I can read you pretty well. Now, tell me what is bothering you," It was not a question but more like an order.
Diana's frown deepened, but after a few seconds she released a sigh, "It is just the situation with the merging demons. Even though now we know that they exist, we still don't have any information about them. It is so fucking frustrating," she exclaimed.
Alya released her own sigh, she can't really say that the situation doesn't irritate her as it would be a lie. Diana already tried to sense the demons while using the signatures that she memorized in America. Unfortunately the range that she can do it at greatly decreased as now Diana needs to focus on so many things that it puts too much strain on her.
Shaking her head, she laid her head down on Diana's shoulder and smirked at her friend's blush, "Don't worry about it too much, we will figure something out like we always do. Now pass me the files."
Diana after getting rid of her blush smiled and did as asked, "I already went through all the information about it, so now we only need to read about the locations of the districts."
Alya nodded and took the files from her friend. They both started to read in silence.
After about 10 minutes Alya put the files next to her, pulled herself up from the lying position and looked at Diana, "So the main district where the council reside is in Amsterdam... interesting. I don't think that we should go there before getting accustomed to how the normal district looks like. What do you say?"
Diana nodded, "Yeah, for now let's go to the London district, we will see about the Amsterdam one later. We will go there tomorrow after the dinner, ok?"
"That should be alright. I am curious myself about it so there is no reason to wait. I will see you in the training room later," with that Alya walked out of the room and left Diana alone with her thoughts.
She quickly gathered all of the files, put them on a nightstand and fell back on the bed. Might as well get some sleep, the frustration that she gathered inside was a little tiring.
During her sleep, she dreamed of a big dragon with black scales, long barbed tail and set of black-red wings. It was a dragon that could stand on his back legs and instead of having the same set of legs in the front, it has humanish arms that could easily tear through anything with its sharp claws. (An: For a better picture, you can look up Ferath from ArchAge. My dragon is similar but doesn't have horns on its head.)
It looked very powerful and every beat of its wings was like the sound of a thunder. Finally it stopped circling in the air and decided to land just before Diana.
Now she could see that it was gigantic as even though it crouched before her, Diana still felt like she was standing before skyscraper.
The dragon then reached out with one arm towards her and opened its mouth, "We will meet soon, little Huntress," his voice as it was definitely masculine was powerful and if Diana heard right, slightly amused.
Just before he could reach her, Diana awoke with a gasp, "What the fuck was that!"
Getting her breath under control, she sat up in her bed and thought about the dream. It definitely was not one of her hunter dreams as she never could interact with anyone when she was dreaming, next she never dreamed of a gigantic, intelligent dragon and she never saw a dragon like that.
Then her mind went back to what Rigna told her.
"I almost forgot, there is one more being who merged with you. They are still asleep, but you will meet them in the future."
Can it be that the being finally woke up? Well, it would explain why she is feeling something new deep in her mind. Still, she didn't expect him to be a gigantic dragon. She can't help but wonder is she will be that big in her creature form. She hopes not as it would be a little too much, even for her.
Well, at least now she knows why her other part of the race is called Ancient Dragoness.
Chuckling lightly, she got up and changed into new clothes.
She then sat down by her desk and brought out her daggers before changing them into the sword form. Then she checked her skills and went to find the new one.
Sword Proficiency (Passive) lv. 3/50 (11%)
Allows you the usage of Swords with more ease.
15% more damage with Swords
Just great, now she needs to level it up from the scratch and learn some fighting styles that go along with the sword. Anyway, that is not what she needs to worry about now. Alya, after she showed her the sword asked her if she can upgrade Alya's daggers.
Now the problems are that Diana has no idea how to do it. While she can craft new weapons without a problem, upgrading is still beyond her. Nonetheless, she decided that it would not be fair for her to be the only one with a new weapon. So here she is studying her new sword with every spell that she can think of. Unfortunately wizard's spells are as helpful as 'observe'.
She might be able to enchant Alya's daggers but to make them evolve? No, she would need more knowledge about creating weapons or... "Wait, that's it. Alya evolved from witch to Huntress from a ritual so what if I would try to force the daggers to evolve with it. That could work. Now I only need to create a completely new ritual and find proper ingredients,"here she stopped and banged her head on the desk, "oh fuck me... it will take forever."
Depressed, Diana changed her weapon back to bracelets and took out her books on rituals, runes and arithmancy. It looks like she is not training today.
Three hours later she finally came upon a ritual that if she can edit, will be able to help her.
Merging of essence, a ritual capable of strengthening or weakening whatever is used in the process. It uses the pure essence of every ingredient and merge them together. The merged essence is then transformed into energy that one can put into an item or person. All of the ingredients need to be compatible with each other otherwise the ritual can backfire on the user. Even then the energy created is highly unstable and can destroy whatever it comes in contact with. The chance of a successful merging of the energy and item is about 40% and 20% for any alive being. It is highly advised to be as far away from the ritual when it takes place.
Ok, so it might not be as helpful as she thought, but at least she has something to start from. She shudders at the thought of creating a ritual from the scratch. Still, it looks like she will need to rewrite the whole arithmancy of the ritual and change a few of the runes. The 40% is not something that she can work with so this is another part that needs editing.
Sighing, she took out a notebook and started breaking apart the whole arithmancy for the ritual. First she needs to edit the part where the ritual uses only normal magical ingredients. That would not work as Diana already has a few ideas for the ingredients and most of them are of demonic origin. This part alone will take her some time, but first she needs to write down everything that she will change in the ritual.
The ingredient part is already written down on the paper, next she needs to find a way to check the compatibility of the new ones. The most important thing will of course be stability. From what she can see the ritual puts a lot of strain on the essence of every item so it might be one of the reasons. If that is the truth, she will just make the ritual take more time, so the essences will be able to merge slowly but correctly. Diana can't help but wonder why the ritual is so rushed.
The last part that will be changed is the merging of the energy with the item. As Diana will be using daggers as the target of the ritual, she can throw away to part of it that focus on alive beings. That alone should make the ritual more stable. Of course using demonic items will make the stability laughable, so there is no reason to celebrate.
Putting her pencil away (Diana still can't fathom why the wizarding community would use quills when the moundanes have so much better options) and smiled at her notes. At least now she has a plan. It will take her a few weeks to change the whole ritual and find new ingredients but it should be worth.
Getting up, she put the notes away in her inventory and changed into her training clothes. baggy, grey sweatpants, training bra and a loose T-shirt with short sleeves. On her feet were new and clean, black leather boots with a low heel that she created with some shadow skin and normal leather.
Running into the shadows she came out in the training room. Alya was still there dodging and using her daggers to shield herself from spells that were coming at her from the various enchanted dummies.
Diana sees a perfect moment to enter the fight, quickly disabling the dummies, she appeared before Alya with her sword ready to deflect a blow that was directed at her head. Using Alya's surprise, she used her sword to knock one of her daggers away and kick her friend on the side.
Alya cursed under her breath as she righted herself in the air and landed on her legs some distance away from Diana, "You are late!" she exclaimed.
Diana shrugged, "I had a few things that needed my attention," she said while again running at her friend.
Alya raised an eyebrow while deflecting the slash from Diana that was directed at her midsection. She used her experience with daggers and Diana was quickly pushed to defence, "Ohh? And what would those things be?"
Diana winced a little at the onslaught, it is clear that her experience with a sword is showing here. Blocking the strike from Alya's left dagger she didn't have enough time to bring her sword to block the right strike and the first blood went to Alya.
"Fuck," she cursed while jumping away, "It will be harder than I thought."
Alya laughed a little before appearing behind Diana ready to strike her in the back. Diana fortunately sensed the attack coming and blocked both daggers.
Using her free hand, she punched Alya's forearm before she could escape her. Despite that Alya didn't even move and again began her attack. This time Diana could see that soon she will get overwhelmed, so without wasting any more time, so used a burst of speed and caught Alya's wrist with her free hand and knocked away one of her daggers.
Unfortunately, before she could attempt the next part of her plan, Alya used her left leg to kick Diana's legs away and with the now free right hand. She then flipped her friend on the stomach, sat on her back and brought her dagger to Diana's neck, "I win. Now, will you answer my previous question?"
Diana chuckled even though she was a little red at their position and answered, "Alright, alright, you win, but I can't tell you, it is a surprise."
Alya relented, stood up and huffed, "Can't you tell me now?"
Giggling at Alya's antics, she also stood up and went towards the couch in the corner, "Nope, you need to wait. Don't worry, it will be worth."
Pouting, Alya followed Diana and sat down next to her, "So what now? Dungeon? One more spar?"
Diana shook her head at no and answered, "I wanted to try the attack that we are developing, but with a sword. it might be easier to focus our power into one blade."
Alya nodded, it is a good idea, "So empty ID?"
"Empty ID," Diana confirmed.
Taking Alya's hand, she used 'ID create: Empty' and within a second both girls were standing in a rocky clearing. Alya quickly went to the side and transfigured one of the rocks into a chair.
Diana meanwhile summoned her sword and again went through all the steps of their new technique. Speed, stability, sharpness and invisibility. They already got the first two down and are making pretty good progress with the third.
First she decided to only use the first two and then make her way up. She took the sword in both of her hands and started to channel magic into it. After a few second she made a slash forward and a big wave of black energy with violet tint got released. It traveled at very high speed towards one of the rocks and exploded on impact.
After the dust cleared Diana heard shouting to her left, "How was it? Any better?"
"Yeah, the magic was a lot easier to gather and mold while having two hands on the sword," she shouted back.
Alya then appeared next to the rock that was hit by Diana's attack and shouted again, "You know the result is also much better. Now add sharpness to it."
Diana nodded and turned towards another big rock. Again she gathered magic in the blade, but this time while she moulded it, she gave it not only speed and stability, but also sharpness. Of course, when she tried to do that stability started to fight her. Finally, after a minute she made a wild slash towards the rock and this time instead of a big wave, she released energy almost as thin as her blade.
The attack cut some way into the it, but then exploded and destroyed the whole rock.
Diana wiped the sweat that gathered on her forehead and grinned at the result. This time Alya appeared next to her and gave her a bottle with water.
Thanking her friend she quickly downed the bottle and threw it away. Both girls then went to inspect the damage. The crater from the explosion was much bigger than previously so there is that. Unfortunately, they couldn't see how far the attack went as the whole rock got destroyed.
"You know, I think that we are on the right path," declared Alya with a grin.
Diana looked at her with a look that clearly said, 'you think'.
Alya's grin got even wider at the look and said, "oh come on.. no need to be sarcastic now."
Diana shook her head and smiled, "Ok, I think that's enough for today. I want to go through the files one more time and then go to sleep."
The other Black nodded and then quickly disappeared from the ID world. Both of them then went back to their rooms.
Next Day
When Diana woke up, she quickly went about her normal routine. Then after eating her breakfast, she went back to her room, so she could work on the ritual a little more before they go to the Underworld district.
She had already removed the part of using the ritual on living beings and now her focus is on making it compatible with demonic items. Apart from that she already decided on a few ingredients. The first will be 'Demon's heart shard' that from what Diana discovered has some of the demonic energy within. It should fuel the ritual just alright. The next ingredient that needs to be in it is 'Infernal Ingot'. No questions there as it will build the new form of Alya's weapon. Diana also decided to use some of the 'Demon Dragon's scales' that she acquired on her trip to America. From what she read, the scales should give the weapon more power and durability so why not.
Now, here appeared a new problem for Diana. While she knows that these ingredients will make the weapon stronger and maybe even give it a new form, she knows that is won't be enough to merge two daggers together. This left Diana's mind racing as she can't find anything that would make those two weapons become one.
Seeing that the time of dinner is coming, Diana closed her notebook and put in in inventory. Then she changed into her standard black jeans, violet blouse and leather jacket.
Quickly going down to the kitchen, she greeted her whole family and sat down by the table.
After the dinner the girls informed their parents that they are going out but will be back soon.
Diana then shadow traveled them next to Statfor Park, where the portal to the London Underworld is placed. Diana extended her senses an quickly located the place.
It was heavily warded place near the center of the park and the portal itself was between two old trees. Diana now easily understand why such small park still exists in such place. The wards must protect it nicely.
Not wasting anymore time both of the girls went through the portal and appeared in a room with stone walls and only one door. They raised an eyebrow and just when they wanted to go through the door, they opened and in walked an older man dressed in a Muggle, gray suit. He had dark brown hair, blue eyes and a few wrinkles on his face.
Diana's eyebrow raised even higher at the Muggle clothing, but said nothing about it. The man then took out his wand and the girls quickly summoned their weapons.
The old man seeing that quickly stopped his action and said, "I am sorry if I scared you, but I mean you no harm. Now if you could put your weapons away, I would like to summon us some chairs to sit."
The girls narrowed their eyes, but nodded nonetheless. They didn't give the old man time to summon chairs for them as they waved their hands and conjured chairs for themselves.
The old man raised an eyebrow at the wandless magic, conjured a chair for himself and sat down, "Now I think that the introductions are needed. My name is Joseph Weston, a werewolf and guard to the entrance of London's Underworld."
The girls nodded and Alya introduced them, "I am Alya Black and this is my friend Diana Black. I don't know if you know about our race but we are Huntresses."
The man's eyes got wide at the mention of Hunters but he schooled his expression quickly, "You speak of being a part of a race that is almost extinct. Care to prove it?"
Diana gained a thoughtful look and said, "And how would we do that? We don't get our wings till 16th birthday."
Joseph nodded and was a little surprised at the girls' knowledge, "Our community created a special spell so we could identificate every race that comes to our districts. I can cast it first on myself if you don't trust me."
The girls quickly accepted and he showed them how this spell works on himself. After the spell was cast on someone they released aura that was colored differently according to the race. Joseph explained which color means what and then cast it on the girls.
Both of the girls gave out a violet aura, but Diana's was a little more dark. Joseph then nodded and said, "Now that I know that you are saying the truth, let me officially welcome you to the Underworld. It has been a long time since one of your races appeared."
They were not surprised to hear that, but Diana still asked, "Are there any Hunters in London district?"
"Yes, there is one of your race living here. He runs the bookstore. Edward Lynch is his name. He was a part of this place long before me so I don't know how old he is. Now the last question before you I will let you in. Why did you come here?"
Alya nodded and answered, "We are here so we can gain some information about our race and see the Underworld for ourselves."
Joseph smiled, "Good to know. Now do you know of the rules?" a nod, "Alright, I think that's all. Come."
He got up with Diana and Alya following him. Joseph opened the door and lead the outside.
Diana can only say that the community took the name literally as they were now in a big cave that looked like a cross road. You could say that the whole district was built with two 'streets' that came together in a T formation. The entrance to the district was in the place that those two streets created the cross road.
The homes and shops were build into the walls of the cave. Even then the girls could see that those houses were still styled to look better and not like a cave dwelling. The street that go straight from them looked like shopping alley as they could see a big number of shop signs. Then the street that went to the left and right side was most likely residential street.
Apart from that the district was surprisingly well illuminated and they could see masses of people and creatures here.
Joseph looked at them with a smile and said, "Quite nice hmm?"
Alya grinned, "Yeah, we were most definitely not expecting so many people here, but still you took the name Underworld literally."
Joseph laughed at the remark, "Yes, Underworld indeed. Now, as you can see, the district consists of two main streets and a few smaller alleys, the one before you is market street and to the left and right you got residential area. We never went about naming them so no fancy names. Now, the old Edward's shop is on the left side and is called 'Brain's End'. With that said I wish you good day," after giving the standard information he walked away leaving the girls alone.
Diana smiled at the sight and turned towards Alya, "No reason to waste any more time huh?"
Alya nodded and the made their way into the market street.
There were a lot of shops books, clothes, animals, pubs, inns, apothecary, more clothing, artefacts, Gringotts branch and even a joke shop. The girls are sure that there are more, but this is not their focus now.
From what they could see most of the races living there are werewolves, vampires, goblins, vellas and squibs. They also saw a few half-giants and centaurs. While surprising they just shrugged and walked further so they could find the shop.
Finally, after 10 minutes of getting through the masses of people the managed to find the shop. It had a big sign made in some red wood above the door and the wall of it was colored in blue. For the girls it is still funny that they paint the walls of the cave.
Walking in they saw that it was slightly bigger than most of the shops that they saw. There were a few people inside browsing through the books and by the counter was standing a woman in her late twenties. Diana decided to go to her and ask for the owner of the shop.
"Excuse me, is Mr. Lynch available now?" she asked with a straight face.
The woman looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "I am sure that I can help you with whatever you need."
"Unfortunately is is not a matter of a shop so if you could inform him, I would be most thankful."
The cashier snorted, "What would a brat like you want with Mr. Lynch."
Getting annoyed Diana narrowed her eyes and channeled a little magic into them to give them a glow, "Listen here, I don't care what you think of me. Me and my friend need to talk with him so I ask one more time. Can you get him?"
Just when the woman wanted to answer, another voice interrupted her, "Evelyn what is going on here?"
The man that walked in looked like he was in his late forties, had black hair, grey eyes and a light beard. The now named Evelyn turned towards the man and answered, "Mr. Lynch those two girls are demanding to speak with you."
The man looked amused and then turned towards Diana and Alya, "How can I help you then."
Alya decided to take the lead before Diana says something that they will regret, "Sir, my name is Alya Black and we came here to speak with you about.. you could say a racial matter," the last part she said more quietly, they don't know if Lynch's race is a common knowledge, but there is no need for everyone to know that they are Hunters.
Now Lynch looked intrigued, "Race you say? Alright follow me."
He leads them through the back door towards a room that looked like a kitchen with one table and a few chairs, "Sit down. Something to drink?"
The girls sat down and politely refused the man's offer. Edward prepared some tea for himself and then sat down, "Alright, so what it is about race? No one knows what I am, so it can't be about me."
"There you are wrong sir. We know exactly what you are as we are the same. Oh, and I am Diana Black," she informed the man.
Edward looked surprised, but quickly schooled his expression, "Alright, so what I am?"
Diana smirked, "You sir, are a Hunter, one of the last of our race."
Edward kept his stoic expression and asked one more question, "Ok, so you know what I am. Now, how do I know that you are Hunters too. From what I know there were only a few Hunter children and I never heard of any family with Black last name. Now that I think about it, it is a name of one of the noble wizarding families."
This time, Alya answered, "You are right, we are a part of the Black family, but we are not witches. We were already tested by Joseph and he confirmed that we are of your race. We can't tell you how we became Hunters."
Edward finally relented, "Let's say that I believe you. Now what can I do for you?"
"We came here in hopes of gaining more information about our race and demons," Diana quickly answered.
Edward raised and eyebrow, "Demons? From what I know the only demons that walk the earth are D-class and even then those are rare. So why would you need information about demons."
Now it was time for Diana and Alya be surprised, "D-class? I already fought some c-rank demons. I don't know where you got that information, but it is pretty outdated. Something is going on and we need to be prepared."
Now Edward looked grim, "That is not good. I haven't any contact with others for 20 years, so you might be right. Now I don't know much as I only got trained in our traditions, language and how to prepare the potion for our 16th birthday, you know how to make it?" a nod, "Good. I can't help you too much as I am already 90 years old, you probably know that we age even slower than wizards so it should not be a surprise. Now I can give you the books that I had with me during my training. They might help you," with that he got up and walked away.
Alya frowned and looked at Diana, "Not too helpful, huh?"
Diana shook her head, "Can't blame him. It looks like our demon problem only appeared some time ago. Still, we can ask him how to contact the other Hunters."
With that they waited for Edward to come back.
After five minutes Lynch came back carrying 3 books, "I know it is not much, but there is our history, language and information on demons. I hope that it helps you."
Diana took the books and thanked the man, "I am sure they will. Now we have one more question. Is the person that taught you still alive?"
Edward nodded, "He should be. He is one of the last of our race that managed to connect with his inner creature. He goes by his codename Lempo. From what I know he is about 600 years old and he is getting close to the limit. His creature is not one of the immortal ones so he won't live forever," he paused for a moment and took out a paper before writing something down on it, "Take this and show it to him. You will need to go to the main district in Amsterdam. Last that I heard, he is still taking care of an old inn called 'Tiger's Lair'."
They took the paper, hid it and finally stood up, "Thank you Mr. Lynch for your help. We will be going."
Edward nodded and lead them outside of the shop. Then the girls went to the Apparition point and disappeared.
END.
So in this chapter we got the first glipse at Underworld community. I still don't know how big part it will play in the story but I hope that you like it. If you have any ideas for it, leave them in review or pm.
Thank you for all the reviews and follows.
Chaos out.