Gellert was one of the advance guard sent through to the Lintzen's castle. The sturdy, squat building had been left with the wards locked down but in such uncertain times that was no guarantee that nobody had managed to get inside, especially because the Lintzen's portal was within their warded boundary.
Fort Stark, unlike his own Blau Berg, was originally a muggle building so it had a much more solid construction without any of the soaring slender towers, intricate windows and awe inspiring halls that were simply impossibly without copious amounts of magic. It was warmer and friendlier, feeling far less formal. He had many fond memories of swimming in the moat and racing through the extensive grounds during the Solstice celebrations.
It was odd to see the place so dark and quiet with the heavy wooden drawbridge drawn up against the gate. The party cautiously shuffled the hundred meters or so between the boathouse floo and the moat with wands drawn and levelled, ready to respond to an ambush but all remained silent as they reached the moat. Herr Lintzen limped forwards and pressed his seal into the stone sill and they all tensed as the drawbridge lowered, gears grinding and chains clattering.
It landed with a thud against the stone sill, dust puffing up around it. There was a moment of silence, then with a screech the heavy portcullis began to scrape up it's tracks. The party stepped cautiously onto the drawbridge, feet thudding against thick wooden planks. They paused a meter or so away from the doors, looking cautiously at the savagely gleaming points of the portcullis which still protruded from the ceiling. Herr Lintzen pushed hard against the doors; a ward shimmered, flexed, then disappeared. The doors swung open with a creak of rarely used hinges.
The corridor beyond was a tunnel of darkness, opening into the central courtyard in a blaze of light. From there they split into pairs - Herr Lintzen and Frau Fleiss took the banquet hall and library, Herr Hawdon and two aurors from old families took the dungeons and the rest of them split the upper floors between them.
It was surreal to find himself prowling down darkened corridors, musty smelling and hung with cobwebs in a castle that was usually so vibrantly alive. Even the bright paintings and tapestries seemed sluggish and dreary. He had been planning to ask if the portraits had seen anything but as they passed yet another snoozing warlock, he realised the chances were they wouldn't have noticed anything.
A silvery lion informed them in Herr Lintzen's voice that his area was clear. A moment later, Herr Hawdon's fox followed with much the same message. Gellert checked the last two rooms, then watched Herr Freidl send his bear to the others with a similar message. They gathered back up in the courtyard until Anneken and her betrothed returned from the third floor.
'All clear.' Anneken said quietly, her voice echoing against the stones and down the deep well, returning in a spooky and distorted whisper.
'Thank Merlin. If I had to spend another day crammed into a room with ten other women, I think I'd start my own revolution.' Anneken huffed, stretching her arms to demonstrate the sudden generous space.
'It won't be much better.' Herr Lintzen cautioned. 'We only have half the rooms that Blau Berg has, so we'll still be living in dorms of six and we're going to have to dedicate the grounds to livestock and crops.'
Anneken rolled her eyes because she had a far better knowledge of the rooms than most people, what with having assigned them herself.
'Aha, but six is better than ten, especially when Sophia isn't part of the six. She snores loudly enough to wake the dead.' Anneken pointed out.
'Cast a silencing charm.' Frau Fleiss snapped sternly and Anneken glared at her.
'That's dangerous. What if something happened in the night?'
The discussion continued in the background as Gellert peered down the well; it was dark and damp. Ferns grew on the moist, mossy walls and dripped into the gleaming black pool far below. His fingers curled around the bronze disk in his pocket and he shared a quick glance with Herr Lintzen. The large man cleared his throat and the two witches fell silent.
'Gellert, Anneken and I will go down to check the ward room now. Someone else needs to have a look at the stables and it wouldn't hurt to get down to the barns and see whether they've touched the supplies.' There was a general murmur of assent and the group split up again, leaving through the drawbridge. Gellert peered down the well again.
'Right at the bottom, okay?' Anneken repeated and Gellert nodded, taking several deep breaths to ready himself.
'Right at the bottom.' He confirmed. He shrugged off his robes so that he wore only his shirt and trousers, averting his eyes as Anneken confidently stripped down to her underdress. A massive splash broke the silence as Herr Lintzen plunged into the well. He opened his eyes in time to see Anneken slice through the surface in a graceful dive. He took a deep breath, then slipped off the wall as well.
The water was cold enough to steal the breath from his lungs but he stubbornly struck out downwards anyway. The trick was to go past halfway, the point where anyone who didn't know it was down there would turn back. His lungs burned and his eyes ached, feeling like his eyeballs were shrivelling up in their sockets. Then, just when he thought his head might split, his fingers brushed air. A moment later the world spun on its axis and he was upright, his feet planted on the gelatinous black water surface and the stone base of the well above his head. Anneken and Herr Lintzen were already there, wet clothes clinging to their skin. Gellert averted his eyes quickly, then couldn't help but glance up as Herr Lintzen growled in outrage.
'What in the name of the ancestors is that?' The burly man seized his daughters arm and spun her roughly. Gellert was allowed a clear view of the dark, stylistically drawn lion which showed clearly though Anneken's soaked white underdress.
'A tattoo.' Anneken replied, entirely blasé despite her obviously painful position. Gellert looked away agin quickly, wondering whether Anneken was mad or very brave.
'A tattoo.' Herr Lintzen echoed dangerously.
'Yes, it's excellent isn't it. It even moves.' He heard the floor squelch as Anneken moved, perhaps demonstrating.
'When this is over, you will dedicate every minute of every day to finding a way to remove this. Consider your allowance suspended.' Herr Lintzen gritted. Anneken muttered mutinously that her revolution was starting to sound very tempting but her father released her and the witch straightened quickly. A moment later, a darling charm washed over him and Gellert allowed himself to look up.
The room was perhaps the weirdest he'd ever been in. The floor was clear water but with some kind of charm that meant they could walk across the spongy surface. Through that, he could see the distant surface which rippled with a strange green light. The focus of the room was a metal ball, perhaps bronze, green with age and perched on a clawed stand. Like every other wardstone, it was etched with a complex array of lines and figures.
He pulled the bronze disk out of his pocket and handed it over to the patriarch. The greenish light sparked off the densely etched Ogham script which covered the bottom side. The highly polished, slightly dished surface reflected light and sent a bright circle dancing around the room. Herr Lintzen stuck the disk to the stone wall so that the light was focused on the metal wardstone.
'You'll have to do the incantation. I just cant get my tongue around that funny language of hers.' Herr Lintzen admitted gruffly, stepping away from the device. Gellert took his place, drawing his wand and imitating the rough Pictish tones as closely as he could. His wand tip glowed with a golden light and he tapped the disk firmly. The circle of reflected light shimmered and stretched, flowing like liquid until it encompassed the entire object. Anneken tucked a drape of moss over the disk and to anyone who didn't know it was there, it would have looked like the stone just glowed faintly of its own volition.
'Do we test it?' Herr Lintzen asked, bending down to inspect the stone.
'No. Hermione said that it only had a certain charge. The less it's used, the longer it will last if we need it.' Anneken replied. 'Let's get out of here.'
The tall witch then executed a neat handstand, Gellert shutting his eyes just in time to miss her skirts pooling around her head and baring her undergarments for all to see. Herr Lintzen was considerably less elegant, walking himself up against the wall. Then he flexed his legs as if he was jumping and surged downwards, through the floor. Dubiously, Gellert did the same.
The moment his feet left the floor, the world spun again, water crashing around his ears. He felt the floor beneath his feet and he pushed hard, shooting upwards like a cork and breaking the surface with a splash. Herr Lintzen hung onto the wall already, whilst Anneken was once again baring inappropriate clothing as she scaled the rough, slippery bricks. Herr Lintzen grunted at him to fetch a rope when he reached the surface and Gellert nodded, following Anneken up the well.
A combination of living rough and more practical clothing had him reaching the top first and he reached for the bucket, unhooked it and sent the rope down into the darkness. As Anneken slithered over the top of the wall, Gellert tapped he pulley with his wand. With an ominous crack of rope under load, the mechanism began to turn and Herr Lintzen was hauled up, dripping, from the water.
They were completely redressed by the time the others returned, looking for all the world like they'd just been to some obscure room in the dungeons rather than going for a swim and a climb. There was a round of confirmations that everything was alright, then Gellert (purportedly as the youngest and fittest) was sent sprinting down to the floo in the boathouse to let those at Blau Berg know it was safe to come through.