Hi! I went over my self-imposed word cap again — I went ahead and split the Eighth Task in half. This is the first half, the second one should be posted within an hour or two.
After another day away at the quiet old manor on the northern sea, the Champions and their families were portkeyed back to Hogwarts. Liz shook off the dizziness from the trip, looked around.
She frowned — the quidditch pitch? Why were they here? Wasn't the Task out on the Lake?
There was a little bit of mess for a moment, people dusting themselves off and milling around and chattering, before an amplified voice suddenly rang through the pitch, Liz flinching a little at the unexpected volume. "Welcome back, Champions! We haven't much time to get everything straightened out, so, families please say your goodbyes and good lucks, and head off for the stands on the Lake — someone will lead you... Yes, follow the red sparks, someone will get you there." Liz glanced around, someone had cast vivid red wandsparks up into the air, somehow suspended much longer than they ordinarily would, behind her to the right — that led toward the Hufflepuff changing rooms, if she recalled correctly, but there'd be an exit over there too. "Champions, meet your teams over here, under the green sparks, and we'll get started."
People started moving right away, a sudden uptick in chatter as the other Champions said goodbye to whoever had come along with them for the day away, lots of hugs going around. Of course, Liz and Severus were hardly the most touchy-feely types. "Good luck, Elizabeth," Severus said, sounding (and feeling) perfectly calm and unconcerned. "Try not to do anything too foolish."
"Yes, well, you know me."
A funny shiver rolling off his mind, he drawled, "Precisely."
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"
Instead of answering, Severus just ticked up an eyebrow at her, mind simmering with a very Severus feeling of mixed exasperation and amusement. He turned on his heel and started away without another word.
Liz thought his body language was kind of missing something without the silly billowing robes. Less dramatic Saturday morning cartoon villain, more socially awkward nerd.
Anyway, she started off toward where there were green sparks floating in the air — ahead of the rest of the Champions, their goodbyes with their families taking rather longer. There was a sizeable number of people over here, a good dozen lingering under the green sparks, a short distance away a rather larger group, standing in little clumps of two or three and chattering away. Most of them, Liz saw, were in sturdy boots and gloves, lots of heavy linen trousers and wool jackets. The rules about what they were allowed to have on them were rather looser for this task than the others, presumably their clothes were enchanted for some protection.
Liz was dressed much lighter, by comparison. She did have her duelling boots and gloves, but she was just in one of her Seer-friendly linen dresses. Since she'd known this event was coming up, she had altered it a little — she'd stitched anti-transfiguration spells along the hems, so people couldn't try to mess with her clothes. It should also resist a stripping hex, maybe even well enough to prevent her wand from being yanked away, but she hadn't been able to test that very well. And that wasn't all, she'd added other shite to her clothes as well, though her options for what she could do with the materials she had and without somehow crippling herself were pretty limited. Her vest was enchanted with some soul-shielding elements which should reduce the effectiveness of veela and lilin shite — it seemed to work on their casual influence, but she hadn't tested it against a concerted attempt to mess with her — mostly just to avoid a repeat of that incident from the Fifth Task. She'd also stitched anti-detection spells into her scarf, but she wasn't certain how well those were going to work.
As odd as it sounded, she'd also enchanted her knickers — the enchantment she'd designed should jolt her awake if she started to lose consciousness, like from a stunning spell. Powering instantaneous effects was more difficult, she'd had to fix a couple beads into the waistband to get it to work. (Decorative glass like these made inefficient reservoirs, but that was fine for her purposes.) She had managed to test the enchantment, just by hitting herself with stunning charms, and it did work...mostly. It took the reservoirs thirty seconds to a couple minutes to charge (depending on how noisy her aura was at the moment), so as long as she didn't get hit a second time in that window she should be fine. Though, it did also depend which stunning spell someone was using — this was the second pair she'd made, the first one she'd burned out the runes when they tried to stop the more advanced dark stunning charm she'd tested them with. Not a problem she could solve, the fabric simply didn't have the channelling capacity to deal with anything too powerful, but it was good enough for now.
(By "burned out", she meant they'd literally caught fire while she was wearing them. Thankfully she'd already learned some healing magic for the Fourth Task, because Pomfrey would have had some awkward questions about how that had happened.)
She'd enchanted a few single-use cantrips with an absurdly overpowered unlocking charm, in case the opportunity came to pick up treasure nobody else had gotten to yet, but that was really it. Some of the other competitors had almost certainly prepared more than she had, especially on the cursebreaking side, but she didn't really care — it wasn't as though she planned on doing much cursebreaking anyway, and loading herself up with too many defensive enchantments was likely to just slow her down and fuck with her mind magic.
Also, she hadn't bothered learning how to swim, but if she fell in the water she was probably already fucked anyway.
The group under the green sparks — the Champions' partners for the Task, obviously — was small and spread out enough that Liz could easily spot Susan and Katie. Susan was in her school duelling uniform, but missing the jacket, wearing a cloak instead — probably enchanted with anti-detection spells, like Liz had suggested. Katie had a similar cloak and her duelling boots, but for some reason she'd decided to come in a plain, sleeveless, button-up blouse and a pair of muggle denim shorts. What the hell?
"Hey, girls," she said as she walked up to them. "Ready to go?"
Smirking a little, Susan said, "We better be, because it's a little late to go get anything now. What's with the dress? You know we're going out on the Lake."
Liz shrugged. "I can't swim anyway, I figure they'll just count it as a forfeit if I fall in the water."
Both of the girls gaped at her for a second, Katie found her voice first. "You can't swim? Honestly, Liz, we could have done something about that..."
"Too late now," she said, shrugging again.
"Yeah, sure, but what I meant is that your skirt is going to go all over the place in the water — the elves are going to be recording us again."
...Liz hadn't thought of that. "I guess I'll try not to fall in the water, then. Ugh, people passing around pictures of my knickers is just what I need..."
"You're an unmarried noblewoman — you can sue people into the ground if they do."
"Oh! Right, I forgot." Some of the archaic, literally mediaeval laws they had in this country were absurd, and hard to keep straight sometimes. There was shite about violating the honour of noblewoman (especially unmarried noble girls) which was super gross when you thought about it, creepy misogynist horseshite, but she wasn't above exploiting stupid existing laws when they benefited her. And it'd be her best option to stop it, she thought, because magical Britain was fucked in other ways, so she wouldn't be able to accuse people passing that shite around of distributing child pornography.
...
When she thought about it, was distributing actual child pornography even technically illegal in magical Britain? Honestly, even if they were what the stupid law here would consider underage, she didn't think so? She'd never heard anything about that, at least, just, Jesus Christ, this country was so fucked...
Forcefully distracting herself from that line of thought, Liz turned to Katie. "Besides, I'm not dressed any more inappropriately than you. We are going into a fight, you know."
Katie smirked, her mind shivering with amusement. "I thought about that, but I figured you'd prefer taking the lead — you shouldn't get too distracted."
"Oh piss off, that's not what I meant and you know it."
"If you say so, but, hey now, is that pink I see on your face?"
Liz scowled — her face did feel a little warm already, but it'd only been a few seconds, the flush probably wasn't actually visible yet. Katie was just teasing. "Are you physically capable of not teasing me, like, ever?"
"Not if you're going to keep being sweet about it, no."
"Sweet? I told you to piss off."
"And it was adorable."
"Would you two like a moment?" Susan asked, her mind bubbling. "I can put up some privacy charms for you."
Katie gave Susan a light shove on her shoulder, the two of them sniping back and forth for a little bit, while Liz took a few slow breaths, trying to tamp down the heat on her face — she'd rather not start this Task already embarrassing herself.
(Her eyes intermittently finding their way to Katie's thighs and hips wasn't helping her cool off.)
Thankfully, before she could make a complete idiot of herself, the amplified voice came up again. Not someone she recognised, masculine, presumably some random person on the Tournament staff, couldn't even see where it was coming from. "And that's everyone, good. Someone will be coming around and handing each team a sack — use these to store whatever treasure you manage to collect. They are impervious to being cut and include anti-theft enchantments. If you are eliminated due to going out of bounds, either by accident or as a forfeit, you will retain your winnings, but if another team defeats you in combat, the elves doing the evacuations will leave the sack behind. Keep this in mind: you may lock in your score at any time by simply leaving the field, but if you are downed by another team you will lose everything. Champions' scores for the Task will be determined by the sum of all the treasure secured by teams representing their school, and the judges' evaluations of their personal performance. Now, any questions?"
There were a few, but nothing really important, Liz and Susan explaining the bits Katie missed for her. (She did know some French by now, but it was still pretty shaky sometimes.) While the questions were going on, a man went through the group of Champions' teams, handing out their bags — apparently the Champions' bags were marked for who they belonged to, there were little pauses as the man matched the right person to the right bag. It was a plain canvas sack, attached to a sturdy leather strap, the enchantments on it powerful enough Liz could feel the magic prickling at her skin. Holding it up by the strap, she asked, "So, who's carrying the bag?"
"Me," Katie said, holding out her hand.
"Why you? Shouldn't Liz keep it? With her quick-step, she's the most mobile of the three of us."
"She's also the most likely to get knocked out first, since she'd going to be zipping up to hit people at close range, and of the two of us I have better odds of surviving long enough to quit the field."
Handing the bag over to Katie, "You're right, here you go. If I go down, make a break for it — cover her retreat if you can," she said to Susan. "Once I'm eliminated, the goal has to be getting the treasure out to lock in our score."
Susan grimaced, probably not liking the idea of holding off whoever might take out Liz, by herself, long enough for Katie to get away. But she admitted, "Yeah, that makes sense. What if Katie goes down first?"
"Then I take the bag and quick-step straight for the water. Half of the teams are already older than us, trying to fight them outnumbered is just asking to lose."
"Right, right. Just going to leave me behind, huh?" She was saying it in a low, irritated grumble, but Liz could feel she was teasing.
"As many hits as I've taken in teams and trios, I figure you owe me a few."
"You like jumping up in front like a dramatic ast, don't deny it."
"I haven't forgotten Cambrian over the last few days, you know, you might as well just call me a bitch in English."
"Sure, but it doesn't roll off the tongue the same way..."
Any further teasing was cut off by the bloke speaking again with a few more instructions. They would each be sent to their own starting location, distributed over the playing field — the sacks were also their portkeys, when it was time everyone should hold firm on the strap. If someone was left behind, they could get them to their team, but it would be a delay of a couple minutes, so it was worthwhile to not fuck it up. A quick reminder of the kinds of magic that were allowed, dishonourable tactics that might get you eliminated, blah blah. The structure they were playing on would gradually collapse and sink into the Lake over the course of a few hours — they didn't necessarily expect the Task to last the entire span, but the final bit of the island sinking was a hard limit anyway — the different sections were not marked in any way, and there wouldn't be any warning before they started to collapse. If they did fall out of bounds, they'd have about a minute to get back on dry land before it'd be counted as a forfeit and they'd be removed. Check the contents of your sacks for some supplies, there were...twelve minutes until the starting bell.
At the mention of supplies in the sacks, Katie plopped down to the ground and yanked open the drawstring. There were a few bottles of water, some snacks in crinkly paper packages, some bandages and phials of healing potions kept in a padded box to prevent breakage — Liz guessed the water was because they might be in there for hours, running around and doing whatever, the medical supplies in case they get injured (but not badly enough to be removed), and the snacks because some healing potions could be miserable to take on an empty stomach. There was also a map, but extremely basic, just the shape of the island crosshatched with streets. Several places on it were marked, in symbols that didn't really make sense, maybe giving them starting points for finding 'treasure' or to warn of traps? If so, it wasn't very clear. It didn't even seem to mark their starting position, honestly Liz suspected any attempt to interpret the map would be a waste of time.
There were also shiny gold coins in the bag — not real currency, with a stylised depiction of the Goblet of Fire on one side and on the other what might be intended as an engraving of the Valley, a large island on the Lake that wasn't normally there, words printed along the rim in French, New Triwizard Tournament on top and Hogwarts 28 May 1995 on the bottom. They very much looked like they might be meant as commemorative coins, maybe the same ones the participants would get to keep? (All the non-Champion participants in previous Tasks had gotten little mementos like that, so.) They probably weren't actually gold either, some alloy just meant to look like it, sinking that much actual gold on this Task would be silly. There were fifteen of them total, Liz guessed to guarantee there was some award for knocking out other teams.
While they were packing the bag back up, Liz felt a trio of familiar minds approaching, glanced up. Artèmi had dressed up all pretty and feminine, as she sometimes did at events, a delicate white dress and heels, which seemed like a pain to Liz, but what did she know. (Honestly, she kind of appreciated the style, and not just because Artèmi was annoyingly pretty — if/when Liz ended up duelling professionally, she suspected she'd be aiming for an especially feminine style too.) Unsurprisingly, she'd picked Alexis and Delacour for her team, the lilin and veela in simpler, baggy clothes. She knew there was some enchanting needed to bring clothing through their fire-walking stuff, presumably the people around who were rather less defensively dressed were veela and lilin. Mostly, anyway, there might be more exceptions than Katie and Artèmi and Liz herself, but.
"Hello, Liz," Artèmi said as she walked up. "Bones, Bell. Counting my money for me?"
Susan scowled — Liz didn't miss how her eyes flicked to Delacour. "I wouldn't count on it, with the dead weight you're carrying."
"Dead weight?" Alexis repeated, a mix of amusement and irritation sparking off of her. Liz did catch an echo of the feeling, but much milder than she was used to — her enchantment was working for now.
"As I recall, you and Delacour there both got put down hard in the Fifth Task."
"As I recall, you weren't even in the Fifth Task."
Susan gave the lilin girl a toothy smirk. "I'm a better duellist than Chelsea, but she's muggleborn — she could use the attention better than I." How much good it could do for people to get their names out there had been one of the things they'd considered when picking people from the duelling team to compete, Susan hadn't even put herself up for the spot for that reason. Though Chelsea had done much better than Liz had expected, honestly, even managed to beat Alexis. Susan probably was still the better duellist of the two, but it wasn't by as much of a margin as they normally assumed.
Of course, there was also the subtle insult that Alexis had been beaten by someone who hadn't even known about magic before a few years ago, and couldn't even practise properly over the summers, but Alexis might or might not have picked up on that part.
"And I'm sure Liz wouldn't mind kicking your teeth in a third time," Katie said with a nod to Delacour.
"Looking forward to it, in fact."
With a mild ache in her chest and a drooping cool weight — the feeling blunted by her enchanting, and this time he might actually be focussing on her and it still worked — Delacour pouted at her. "Ah, my heart breaks! What did I ever do to earn such cruelty?"
"You mean besides sexually assaulting me in front of all of fucking Europe?"
Delacour grimaced, something in her stomach simmering and twisting (subtly). "Yes, er, about that..."
Liz shook her head, gave him a dismissive flip of her hand. "Don't bother." Not like she'd know what the fuck to do with an apology anyway. "Just saying, I'm still annoyed with you."
"...Fair enough."
There was a stiff, tense silence for a moment, Artèmi glancing between the three of them and her own teammates. Oddly, she seemed a little amused, in a dark, reluctant sort of way — it didn't show on her face at all, but Liz was a cheater. "Well," she said, turning to Liz with a subtle little curl of her lips. "That didn't go how I'd planned."
"It's all right, Katie already got in the flirty teasing for you."
Flickers of amusement through all five of them, Artèmi glanced Katie's way. "I suppose this teasing wasn't entirely nonverbal."
Liz rolled her eyes, but before she could say anything, Katie snapped, "Piss off, Cæciné. We'll see you on the field."
There was a little bit of talking after that, but Liz missed most of it, frowning at Katie. Was she... It might just be her imagination, but was Katie actually embarrassed all of a sudden? Didn't know what that was about...
After probably the single most uncomfortable, aggressive interaction she'd had with Artèmi, her team retreated again, leaving Liz feeling rather confused. Did Katie and Susan, just, dislike Artèmi? Liz and Artèmi had had little teasing moments pretty much every time they'd spoken, but this had seemed a lot more...mean-spirited, somehow. She was tempted to ask what the hell that had been about, but she wouldn't even know how to go about it, honestly. Whatever, not like it actually mattered — Liz expected she might bump into Artèmi (or Alexis or Delacour) at duelling events in future, but after their guests left at the end of next month they weren't likely to interact much ever again.
Not long after that, the announcer person gave them a one-minute warning. All of the trios shuffled around to stand in little circles, holding their bags between them. That hardly took a whole minute, of course, so they ended up standing around in tense quiet for a while, postures stiff and voices hushed, the air around her thick with sharp anticipation, crackling and itchy against her skin...
Liz felt the enchantments on the bag flare to life an instant before she was bodily yanked off of her feet, the world dissolving into twisting colourful chaos — as near as the Lake was, it only lasted a blink, the world slamming back into existence around her, all three of them staggering a little from the momentum. Liz ended up bumping into Katie, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder, got her balance back again. It took a couple seconds for her head to stop spinning, get a clear look at their surroundings.
They were in a public square of some kind, right on the 'shore' of the 'island'. The tile floor ran right up to the water, a handrail blocking off the drop, a walkway running through it out onto the water, apparently meant to simulate a pier of some kind. There were rectangular gaps in the tile, blocks of greenery in the square, mostly rosebushes, at the centre of the square a circular patch of grass, a tree stretching up overhead. (They must have magically accelerated its growth, this island hadn't been here long enough for that to happen naturally.) All along the three sides of the square were buildings, plain stone and brick with very little in the way of decoration, a few roads leading out of the square and away.
Not bad, considering how relatively little time they'd had to build this thing — and the island was huge too, judging by the view from the Castle covering a significant fraction of the Lake, necessary to fit all twenty-four teams without them effectively coming in on top of each other. Seemed like a waste of effort, considering the whole thing was just going to end up cracking apart and sinking anyway, hopefully some people had gotten good money for their work, at least.
"Should I see if I can find where we are?" Katie said, reaching for her bag.
"Don't bother. It didn't seem like the map was giving enough information to be useful anyway."
Lifting one shoulder in a lazy shrug, "Sure, I guess. Which way we going?"
"I remember from the map that there were bigger gardens and courtyards more toward the middle," Susan said. "Find one of those with plenty of roads coming in, and we'll be able to mark teams going through and follow them."
Liz nodded. "Good thinking." She started walking right away, following a path between rows of bushes, full-blooming roses swaying in the breeze. "Don't forget your concealment spells — that strategy won't do any good if we get spotted first." They didn't actually cast their concealment spells yet, waiting until they were deeper into the 'city' and more out in the open. Liz would hold off on using them at all until she actually felt someone coming, since her mind magic meant she'd get more warning than either of the other girls, and they wouldn't be able to see through her concealment spells.
They were looping around the tree when Liz suddenly hitched to a stop, frowning — the other two kept walking for a few steps, Susan nearly running into her. "What is it?"
"Do you feel that?"
There was a twitter of confusion from Susan, swiftly followed by the crawling prickling crackle of a detection charm of some kind. "Ah, there is something here. I didn't even notice, I didn't realise your magesight was so sensitive."
Liz just hummed — it was just as likely Seer shite, but she guessed it hardly mattered. She paced around the tree at the centre of the square, trying to pinpoint where the tingle of magic was coming from. The feeling was rather vague and only weakly directional, it was hard to— Ah ha, found it. There was even something carved into the trunk of the tree on this side, though Liz couldn't read it, maybe some Asian script. (Not Chinese characters, she at least recognised what those looked like, but this one was unfamiliar.) It was under her feet, she took a couple steps back, drew her wand — a harsh jab and a flick up, a heap of dirt ripped up out of the ground with a surprisingly loud tearing of grass, Liz tossed it over to the side with a careless swish, the mass landing with a heavy whumph and a skittering and hissing of clumps of dirt hitting and grains of sand skipping across the tile. Another digging charm, she made out the edge of some kind of box, stepped up closer to the edge of the hole to peer down—
Muffled in the distance, there was a shivering bang of a curse expending itself against a shield, followed by more noise of spellfire. Liz looked up, her eyes unconsciously tracking the sounds of a fight, somewhere deeper into the 'city' that way. "Sounds like someone's having fun out there," Katie drawled, wand out and idly tapping against her thigh.
"Let's not let them have all of it, then." A quick charm to loosen the soil around it, and Liz cast a strong summoning charm on the object, leaning back out of the way as it rocketed up into the air — it rose a good five metres or so, banging against a couple tree branches, before thunking dully against the ground a short distance away.
"I've got it," Susan said, " just give me a minute." She swished up to the object — a small, ceramic-sided trunk, still crusted with damp soil — sank down to a crouch over it. Concerned there might be a trap, Susan didn't touch it, even just to turn it rightside-up (it was upside-down, the rounded top making it sit at a funny angle), analysis charms streaming from her wand one after the other. Liz and Katie weren't awful with analysis spells and the like, but Susan had picked up shite from the various bodyguards she'd been stuck with over the years — she was the quickest at evaluating whether something was dangerous or not, and if there might be quick ways to get around protections. They'd decided not to focus too much on the actual cursebreaking aspect of the Task, Susan was hardly even passable in the basics, but at least she should be able to quickly evaluate whether something was even worth their time to bother with.
The combat noises trailed off quickly, that fight apparently having ended already. Though they were followed with more spellfire, but even quieter, further off in the distance. While Susan worked, Liz and Katie silently kept watch, eyeing the entrances to the square — not that Liz really needed to look, she'd likely feel someone coming before she could see them, but...
"Got it!" Standing up and taking a couple big steps back, Susan said, "It's just a lock, the structure isn't reinforced — keep back." She waited a couple seconds for Liz and Katie to retreat a little further away from the trunk before, with a heavy swish of her wand, she struck it with a blasting curse. There was a harsh bang, the noise echoing through the square, as the ceramic trunk was blown to pieces, flinging debris out in a cone away from Susan, some far enough to clatter and plink against the tile — Liz noticed a metallic ringing too, some of the contents of the trunk sent flying.
"Someone will have heard that," Liz said.
"I'm on it." Katie kneeled down over the trunk, started scooping coins up into their bag. There were more of them in there than Liz had expected, counting the ones flung away a good couple dozen, at least, more than doubling the 'treasure' they had on them — while Katie was transferring over the ones in the trunk, Liz idly summoned up the coins Susan had sent flying, floated the clump of gold over to hover at Katie's elbow.
Soon Katie had the coins all packed away, and they started moving, exiting the square by the street on the opposite side of the 'shore'. Liz consciously spread her mind out as far as she could, watchful for any faint sense of another person — if that talk with Tamsyn was any indication, she should be able to feel people coming well before even another mind mage (Artèmi was the only other out here, she thought) or lilin or veela would feel her, should give them some warning. They were in some kind of 'residential' area, on either side of the street squat, two-level rowhouses. Obviously artificial, at least to Liz, none of the houses seeming to have hardly any sign of personality...though they weren't identical: she felt a static hum of magic coming from a couple of them, one with a threatening crackling edge harsh enough even Katie and Susan noticed. They didn't bother slowing down, though, just kept walking past. Not only were they not focussing on the cursebreaking side, but someone might have heard that blasting curse, they couldn't stay too nearby for too long. The street was short, only five houses to a side, they passed through a tight narrow intersection straight onto another street, practically identical...
Their street ended at a slightly wider street just ahead, they were nearing the T when Liz hitched to a stop. Concealment, now. Katie and Susan hardly reacted to Liz worming her way into their heads (used to it from duelling practice), didn't ask for an explanation, immediately stacking concealment spells on themselves, cutting off any sound, an illusion turning their bodies transparent, diverting away attention — they didn't work on Liz, of course, she could still feel their minds, but it should be pretty effective on normal people, especially in combination with the anti-detection enchantments on their cloaks. (They were even invisible to each other, but they'd linked elbows first, so they didn't lose track of where the other was.) Turn right ahead, and they're on the next street over, just to the left. I'll slip past them to hit from the other side. She waited until she felt a sense of agreement floating off of both of them, before she started to jog ahead, casting concealment charms on herself, disappearing from Katie and Susan's view.
Liz crossed the street, reaching the large, rectangular building on the other side — maybe a block of flats, by the look of it, four levels high and lined with windows, balconies extending out over the pavement. Tracking the balconies with her eyes for a second, she dug in her feet and then leapt into a quick-step. Her peripheral vision smearing grey, she moved forward and up, the spell cut off as she cleared the railing of the first-storey balcony, Liz dropped the couple of feet to the floor, her hand slapping against the wall to halt her momentum. Turning to the right, she crossed the balcony, skipped over to the next with another angled quick-step, and then the next.
She reached the last balcony in the row, leaned against the railing to peek around the corner of the building. There was another narrow street here, opposite the flats a row of tiny little detached houses, separated with low brick walls and tiny gardens. Three boys were gathered in one of the gardens, a couple houses to the left, one of them obviously casting some kind of spells on the front door, the other two keeping watch. They were one of the junior teams, by the look of them — each school had three Competency-level and three Proficiency-level teams, plus the Champions' teams, for a total of twenty-four teams with seventy-two participants — probably from Durmstrang? Shouldn't be a problem.
Getting to them might be — there weren't balconies on the front face of the building, Liz had kind of shot herself in the foot flying up here in the first place. (Quick-stepping down was more likely to result in making noise, or even hurting herself.) She could feel Katie and Susan already coming up below and alongside her, moving at a good clip, starting to angle in toward the team ahead. If Liz wanted to be in place in time, she...
Well, the street was pretty narrow, she bet she could reach one of the houses on the other side. She cast a quick featherweight charm on herself, and then climbed onto the railing, one foot and then the other. Leaning one hand against the wall, she edged onto the balls of her feet right on the edge of the railing — her stomach swooping with nerves at the drop below, just an inch ahead, her lips twitching — she bent her knees, started tipping her weight forward, pushing off the wall, flaring her magic, and she jumped hard, straight ahead and slightly up, her surroundings whipped away in a blur, zeroing in on the angled roof of the house ahead, the force whipping back her hair and her skirt and scarf—
The quick-step fizzled out, Liz left hanging a few metres over one of the gardens, but that was close enough — she aimed a summoning charm at the roof of the house, yanking herself forward, snapped off a quick softening charm in the instant before she landed, her knees ploughing into unnaturally cushy slate shingles. Ha, nailed it! Spanging with adrenaline, her breath thick in her throat, Liz had to bite her lip to keep down a surge of giggles — not that it mattered, since she was still silenced, but it was the principle of the matter — climbed up the angled roof to peek over. The boys were in the garden of the next house over. Liz quick-stepped over to the next roof (tagging it with a silencing charm first, just in case), leaned over the front quick to make sure they hadn't noticed anything.
As she moved, she noticed motion in her peripheral vision, looked up. There were a trio of bird-like figures drifting through the air, some distance away over another section of the city, lazily spiralling. As she watched, they suddenly swooped down, a second later muffled noises of magical combat reached her, quiet from distance and distorted by bouncing down who knew how many streets — the boys below her looked around, fingering their wands, but eased off after a few seconds, the fighting nowhere near them.
Liz frowned, staring in the direction of the veela/lilin, hidden by the buildings between them. She had a nasty feeling that that team was going to be a problem.
Anyway, she was in the middle of something here — and Katie and Susan were close, she didn't have a lot of time to get into position. She quick-stepped over to the next roof, hopped down into the garden, a featherweight charm providing a gentle landing. Keeping a close watch on the boys' minds, she inched closer, paused a second before vaulting over the garden wall. She was standing only feet away, standing right in the front-right corner of the garden around the same house the boys were working on — close enough that she could tell they were speaking in norrois, definitely from Durmstrang, close enough that they wouldn't have any time to respond. And they still had no idea she was here, her attention-diverting charm holding up.
Not that she was surprised, of course: mind mages tended to be unfairly good at this kind of magic.
She waited one moment, carefully watching the boys, another... There, Katie and Susan were in position. Not bothering to try to keep her voice down, Liz cast, "Arcum fragmentum!" her arm burning from the power of the complex arc spell.
The boys twitched, turning her way — but by the time they saw the curse coming for them, it was already too late. An arc of piercing spells peppered up the first boy's hip and across his chest, thrown back with a spray of blood, the boy at the door ducked, covering his head, but was still clipped over the shoulder by an edge of the arc, knocked onto his side, but the opposite boy managed to get a shield up in time. The shield cracked and shattered under the force, the boy stumbling back a couple steps, but it'd been good enough to protect himself. At the same time, the first boy was toppling over the cursebreaker, rolling over his shoulders to slump to the ground, a blink before he abruptly disappeared. (Presumably an elf had popped in to get the injured boy out, but Liz hadn't even felt them, elves too skilled at not being seen if they didn't wish to be.) Both boys were turning their wands on her, the one she'd clipped with her arc spell a bit slower, gritting his teeth against the pain.
That was the wrong move: the curses from Katie and Susan hit an instant later.
A cutting curse clipped the furthest boy's arm before slashing into the cursebreaker's back (he was evacuated away in a blink), a blasting curse striking the garden wall and exploding to toss a hail of debris at the house. Liz was actually caught in it a little bit, ducked her head and shielded her face with an elbow, but it passed in a second — she'd gotten hit a couple times, her face and her arms stinging, but the boy had obviously gotten it much worse, his clothes slashed in places. A follow-up bludgeoning hex slammed him against the wall — now cut-up and smashed by flying debris, a few shards of brick actually stuck in the wooden door — the boy bounced off and fell to his hands and knees, winded and bleeding from multiple small wounds. Liz started casting a cutting curse, but then caught herself at the last second. His wand had fallen out of his hand to tumble across the stoop, slipping out of sight in the grass — cursing unarmed opponents was one of those dishonourable things that could get you disqualified. While she was still drawn up short, the red light of a basic stunning charm swept over the boy, and he went limp, flopping off the stoop and into the grass.
Liz broke the concealment spells on herself with a wave of her free hand. "That went well." She started idly healing the tiny little scrapes and cuts from the debris she'd caught, nothing serious but might as well patch it up now.
"That poor bastard who caught that arc spell is going to need a hell of a healing job," Katie said, vaulting over the wall into the garden. Liz just shrugged — the damage from that curse had looked worse than it was, the impacts should have been pretty shallow. As powerful of a mage as she was, complex arc spells were still a bit much. "Where did their bag end up... Ah, here it is..."
Katie poked through the team's bag quick — it looked like they only had the coins they'd started with, oh well — while Susan entered the garden by the actual gate, walked up to the door, cast a couple analysis charms. Instead of emptying out the coins, Katie just squeezed the bag tight, pushing out the extra air, and dropped it into hers — the lip opened wide enough to fit through, and the inside was expanded to fit plenty more, quicker this way. "Hey, did you want to check this out?" Susan asked as Katie finished up. "He managed to get the traps out before you hit him, we can just blow the lock."
"Not worth it," Katie said before Liz could. "Someone will have heard the fight — we don't want anyone to follow the noise and trap us inside."
"Right, good point. Moving on?"
"One second." Liz cast a quick summoning charm, the stunned boy's wand flicking up to her hand. "Here," she said, tossing it to Katie, "hold onto this too." They couldn't hit him with anything to force his removal, but they could make sure they weren't leaving an angry enemy at their backs — the stunning charm would wear off before too long, after all.
Katie just smirked at her, mind bubbling with vicious amusement, and tucked the boy's wand in her bag. Magical culture stuff, he'd have to come to her to ask for it back, which Liz knew would be humiliating. It probably didn't say anything good about Katie's character that she found the thought hilarious, but, well, Liz could hardly judge. They walked out of the garden, leaving the stunned boy behind, and started down the street, the opposite direction they'd come, deeper into the city.
They'd hardly been walking for thirty seconds when a frigid chill suddenly dribbled down Liz's spine, nerves prickling over her skin. Her voice a low hiss, "Mind shielding, now!" She'd taught both of them the mind-shielding charm she'd taught herself way back before first year, but she didn't actually know how much it'd help in this situation. All three of them cast the spell at more or less the same time — Liz slightly faster, more practice — Liz jolting into a sprint as she did, Katie and Susan's presence had almost entirely vanished from her perception, but she could still hear them following after her. There were a set of double doors in the face of the big building on one side of the street, she charged right for them, tossed ahead a silencing charm quickly followed by an overpowered unlocking spell (just in case), the doors soundlessly flung open. Liz darted inside some kind of atrium, Susan and Katie close together, a wandless yank, slammed the doors behind them (silently), she quick cast an attention-diverting paling around the room, the power draw spreading it out that far making her wrist burn.
There was a chorus of high, wavering hisses, Liz whipped around on her heel, all three of their wands following the noise. They were in a rather high-class entrance hall of some kind, floors and walls smooth granite, a curling grand staircase leading up to the second level, bronze gilding between the tiles and along the bannister and here and there along door and window frames and the rim of the ceiling. (Again, a lot of fucking work for something that was going to be dust in a few hours anyway, but whatever.) There was a large hearth in here, cold — the pile of ashes inside seemed to move, coiling in on themselves, embers flaring to life, slits of six burning orange eyes opening to—
Ashwinders. «Sleep.» She leaned harder into the magic, putting a compulsion on her voice, reinforcing the natural control parselmouths had over snakes — ashwinders were only elemental constructs in the form of snakes, after all, the default snake-speak shite wasn't guaranteed to work. But she felt the magic clunk into place, the...four ashwinder minds, colourful and unfocussed and sparkling, smooth over and tamp down, curling back down to rest, in a few seconds the ashes in the hearth going still again.
"Okay then," Susan said, her voice a thin whisper. "What are we doing in here, exactly?"
Liz quick made sure her paling was covering the whole room, before waving the girls over to a tall window, a couple metres to the right of the door. Standing in the garden they'd just taken down the three Durmstrang boys in stood two boys and a girl, wearing loose white gowns, presumably enchanted to carry through their shape-changing and fire-walking. It was hard to tell from here, but she was certain they were older, must be one of Beauxbatons's Proficiency-level teams.
"Ah. Never mind."
"So, think we can do them the same way we did the boys?"
"No," Liz said, flat and hard. "We'll lose."
"Really? You sure?"
She nodded. "Seer moment. They'll beat us."
"Oh, well, thank the gods for the Sight, I guess," Susan muttered. Reasonable thought — if Liz hadn't gotten a warning they would have still been in the open out on the street when the veela/lilin were flying over. "So...what do you want to do here? It doesn't look like they're going anywhere any time soon."
It didn't, no. By the look of it, they'd woken up the surviving Durmstranger, probably to ask him where the people who'd taken out his team had gone. She couldn't hear, but she was certain they laughed at him at one point — probably over having his wand stolen. They re-stunned the boy, and were left looking rather excited, chattering and pointing at one house or another, one of them casting something, maybe detection spells...
"They know you're here," Katie said.
"Looks like it." Knocking out one of the proper Champions was good for bragging rights, if nothing else. To flatter herself for a moment, Liz had also proven she was one of the better duellists in the competition, so eliminating her would significantly increase the odds of victory for the Beauxbatons Champions — sticking around to track her down was just good strategy.
"Think we can sneak past them?"
...Maybe? Liz wouldn't normally say so, since she could see through all kinds of concealment magics just fine — even if she couldn't literally see the person, she would still know they were there — so she might assume that any mind mage or veela/lilin would be able to do the same. But, she knew now, that wasn't actually the case: both Severus and Tamsyn, and also Miss Eva, had attributed that talent to being a Seer, not a mind mage. Even then, she might worry one of those three might be a Seer themselves...but, as she'd been reminded repeatedly over the course of this school year, a Seer as sensitive as Liz being as functional as she was (relatively speaking) was quite rare. Most Seers as perceptive as Liz didn't even go to school, much less participate in events like this.
Of course, veela and lilin had broader senses than most people, so while, like, turning invisible might make it so they can't see a person, they'd still be able to feel them. Aversion spells, though...
Liz sighed. "Might as well try — doesn't look like they're going anywhere. Keep your mind-shields up." She quick renewed her own, she'd unthinkingly broken it while reaching out to the ashwinders. "I'll cast the aversion spells, mine are more powerful. Renew whatever other concealment spells you got, I'll do mine and take your hands so we don't get lost, we'll go to the left and take the next corner to break line of sight. From there we move low and fast, keeping quiet, until we're a couple blocks away. Agreed?"
"Agreed." "Let's do it."
They didn't delay a second, went right into re-upping their spells, while they were doing that Liz casting the most powerful attention-deflection charms she could manage, on all three of them individually. Between the concealment spells and the mind-shielding, Liz's sense of the other girls was very vague — she could tell roughly where they were, but it was just a fuzzy blob of person here, without much detail. (It was hard to explain, honestly, like the feeling you got from a person walking next to you but just outside of your peripheral vision, nothing but a general awareness of their presence.) It took a little bit of groping around to find their hands, and when they tried starting to move Liz realised she had both of their left hands, the person on her left (Susan, she was mostly certain) passing over to her right hand...
Liz felt out that her paling around the room was still in place, before leading the way to the doors, the invisible presence of Susan on her left (nothing but the vague sense of a person there and a hand warm and smooth in hers) tugging open one of the leaves. They slipped out, Liz eyeing the older Beauxbatons team — they were still standing in the garden, debating what to do, by the sound of it. Oh shite, Liz's aura was so fucking noisy there was an echo of her around...not solid enough for them to actually track, just a vibes thing, good. They were considering splitting up, one of them flying and the other two staying on the ground to—
Her step hitched, just for a second. She leaned back, hissing over her shoulder, «Wake up.» One of the Beauxbatons students tensed a little, glancing around, must have felt a hint of the snake-speak magic, but not enough to point him in any particular direction. Liz lurched into a quick walk, Katie and Susan's hands dragging against hers for a couple steps before they sped up to match her. They walked five metres, ten, Liz's heart pounding in her throat, nearing the corner...
Carefully, keeping the wandless magic as focussed as she could, she reached back and broke the paling hiding the doors, one half still hanging open.
Just as they turned around the corner, one of the veela/lilin trio noticed the open door, pointing it out to the other two. They started stalking toward the door, quiet and smooth and dangerous, but then they were out of sight. Liz kept walking a few metres before she dropped Katie and Susan's hands, broke the attention-deflection spells on them — not on herself, though, her mind was much noisier, the veela/lilin back there might still notice her. Their minds were still shielded, so she cast an illusion of a glowing green word low against the street ahead, GO. They started jogging ahead, ducked close against the side of the big rectangular building to keep out of sight, Liz following close behind Susan and Katie. They ignored the first turn off — Katie borrowed her trick and cast an illusion of an arrow pointing on ahead — but turned toward the second narrow little street, most of the big building now between them and the veela/lilin team.
They were nearly all the way across the street when there was a sudden harsh, surprised, irritated screech from behind them, a shivering explosion — forceful enough that some of the windows in the big building blew, glass crashing apart and tinkling against stone — an intense roaring and hissing of fire. Liz dispelled her concealment charms, hissed, "Run!"
A couple minutes later, they were huddled together in the courtyard in the middle of a square of 'shops', catching their breath under another of Liz's aversion palings. They could still hear the building back there burning, but she thought the Beauxbatons team had moved on by now — they weren't tracking them anymore, though, Liz was reasonably confident the danger had passed. A little pink in the face from the running, Susan muttered, "You woke up the ashwinders, didn't you."
Liz nodded. "Yep."
"And I'm guessing the paling around the doors didn't just fail," Katie drawled, the tone sort of missing something with her voice a little thin from exertion.
"Nope. How well do you think veela and lilin can cast the elemental spells you need to contain ashwinders?"
"Ha! Not well, by the sound of it — clever bitch..."
"I like to think so. Ready to get going? There's another team over that way," she said, pointing toward one of the alleys leading out of the courtyard. "Inside one of the buildings across the street, I think, they haven't noticed us yet."
"Sure, let's hit 'em. Get out a water bottle, Kaite, we should take a drink before we go."
"Bloody Hufflepuff, so responsible..."
፠
Her heart pounding, limbs almost shivering with eager tension, she couldn't help a wide, ecstatic grin.
A dozen metres ahead were Artèmi, Alexis, and Delacour — completely unaware of Liz and Katie and Susan, walking hand-in-hand hidden under aversion charms, stalking them.
Their team had had remarkable luck so far. After their near miss with the older Beauxbatons team — Liz had caught sight of them a few times, gliding lazily through the air elsewhere over the island, but they hadn't again come anywhere close — they'd managed to take down three teams, Katie's bag gradually accumulating pilfered supplies. The first one they'd come across after fleeing from the veela/lilin team had been caught on the back foot, distracted with their cursebreaking job — and they'd actually finished most of it by the time they struck, enough that Susan could quickly crack the locks and Katie collect the gold. Not long after that, they'd come across a little urban greenspace, stitched through with paths and speckled with little gazebos here and there, at an intersection of maybe a dozen streets. Liz had perched herself up in a tree, covered with attention-diverting spells, keeping an eye out for other teams coming through, while Susan poked around the park or the buildings along the circumference for hidden treasure, Katie watching her back.
She had cracked a few during their downtime (so to speak), but she'd skipped over most of the ones she found. It wasn't worth expending the time and effort if the protections looked too strong, better to focus on the ones she was sure she could get open — and even the weaker ones held more gold than the teams started with, so it was definitely worth their time to poke around while waiting for a target to present themselves.
And present themselves they had. When Liz spotted a team coming by the park, she'd zipped over to where she felt Susan and Katie working to collect them, covered themselves with concealment spells and began their pursuit. As soon as the team paused to crack into a promising building, about a block away from the park, Liz had quick-stepped to the opposite side, surrounding them — the team had gone down in seconds, hardly putting up any resistance at all. Katie had stowed their bag in her own, and they'd turned right back around, returning to their park, Liz quick-stepping back up her tree.
The second team to come by the park had actually been hidden with decent concealment spells — they hadn't shielded their minds, though, Liz could still feel them out just fine. She'd immediately recognised them as NEWT-level Hogwarts students, but that didn't actually matter: the gold collected by all of a schools' teams put together counted toward their Champions' scores, but it was still a free-for-all. The rules allowed them to make alliances with other teams, but there was no telling whether they'd be willing to cooperate. All the teams (including the Champions' teammates) would be receiving prizes relative to their performance, so it was a zero-sum game, to some extent: more allies means you can better take down smaller groups, but any gold going to a team you're working with means less for you, and thus a smaller prize.
Besides, she'd recognised one of the minds as one of the Weasley twins (only one of them, oddly). Even if they were willing to team up, Liz would spend the entire time watching for the knife in her back.
Weasley was a surprisingly competent cursebreaker — by the time Liz collected her teammates, they'd already been through one of the doors Susan had skipped, working somewhere inside the house. They'd been leery of fighting older students in a confined space, so they'd decided to get clever with it: Liz quick-stepped up onto a balcony on the second level and broke in, once she was in place Katie sending an army of conjured animals through the front door, Susan painting over the walls with roaring blue-white flames. Predictably, the older students had rushed up the stairs, to fire down at their attackers from the high ground — and run right into Liz's trap hexes. One girl had been knocked out immediately, Weasley had gotten a spiral of cutting charms slicing up his legs, but Morgen Yaxley, surprisingly enough, had managed to get through unharmed. (Liz was vaguely aware Morgen was friends with the Weasley twins, just didn't expect to see her.) She'd been distracted by Weasley's messy, painful-looking wounds, though, Liz struck her with a complex blasting curse before Morgen even realised she was there.
An elf had come by to pop out Morgen and Weasley, but the other girl (familiar, but couldn't place her) had been left behind, along with the team's bag. Liz had frowned down at her for a second, before shrugging, levitated the unconscious girl after her — the house was still on fire, and she didn't know if she'd be eliminated just for leaving her in danger, safer to move her down to the street.
Liz had burst into inappropriate laughter at Katie's very bemused reaction: the unconscious girl just so happened to be Leticia Prewett, Katie's kind-of-sort-of girlfriend. She'd had no idea Prewett was competing, she hadn't mentioned it, and with Weasley and Morgen, how the hell had that happened? She did seem tickled by the thought of Prewett needing to come to her to get her wand back — Katie had a few of those now, but the exchange to return this one Katie was rather more viciously excited about than the others. Liz suspected she was going to turn it into a sex thing, but that wasn't really her business.
(She was very curious, of course, but she consciously avoided looking at Katie's thoughts on the matter.)
A short time after that, Artèmi's team had come by the park. By the time Liz collected her teammates and caught back up — slowed down by very carefully layering concealments and needing to walk hand-in-hand — Prewett had been tied up, and they'd already finished up Weasley's cursebreaking job, stepping back out onto the street. (Liz hadn't realised Artèmi's team would be that good with cursebreaking, but she guessed she wasn't surprised.) They hadn't lingered long, clearly aware that whoever had taken out Prewett's team could be nearby, swiftly heading to the nearest street and leaving the park again.
And Liz's team followed them, unobserved.
The three of them seemed unconcerned, sauntering easily down the street, Alexis and Delacour keeping up a constant stream of banter, Artèmi occasionally making a flat remark or giving exaggerated sighs and rolls of eyes, pausing in front of house to throw analysis charms at it, discuss the prospect before moving on. Of course, they were one of the more dangerous teams on the field — even including the older students, probably — so they had little to worry about, but Liz also suspected they weren't nearly as oblivious as they seemed. With her mind shield charm on, she couldn't feel anything going on, but she wouldn't be at all surprised if all three were constantly scanning around them for threats.
A theory that was proven correct when a team abruptly leapt out of concealment and attacked from all sides — in a blink, Alexis and Delacour teleported behind two of their attackers in twinned bursts of violet and golden fire, the pair cut down even as their opening curses struck Artèmi's oversized silvery shield charm. The third attacker, reeling in shock at the abrupt turn-around, was overwhelmed nearly as quickly, the entire fight lasting only a handful of seconds.
As Alexis dipped down over the annihilated team's bag, there was a tug on Liz's right hand, forward. A question: now? Liz pulled back on both hands — not yet — getting an acknowledging squeeze from both girls.
Artèmi's team started moving again, Liz and Katie and Susan silently and invisibly following after.
Not long after the attack, they came to a little square — hardly the first greenspace or market Liz had seen so far, but this one was different. The square was ringed with a low wall, absolutely covered with flowering vines, beyond the wall a few sprawling trees shading a small structure. The roof was a funny cone shape, rising in tiers engraved with spiralling designs, points rising from the top of the cone and the four corners of the base, gleaming bronze...
Meant to be, like, a temple or a tomb or something, maybe? The garden around it was sealed off with a gate — Artèmi's team paused in front of it for a moment, discussing the pros and cons of cracking it. It did look like a place like this would have extra protections, but the rewards were likely to be proportionately high, so it might be worth their time. Delacour pointed out the protections on the gate weren't that strong, they might as well go in to check it out. They made short work of the protections on the gate, quickly stepping inside. They left the gate hanging open, but Artèmi cast an illusion over the entrance, presumably to trick passersby into thinking the gate was still closed — Liz saw through it easily, she was honestly just guessing what it'd look like to anyone else.
Grinning, Liz squeezed Susan and Katie's hands, and followed.
Oh, this was fucking perfect. There were a few small steps onto the base of the structure, an open archway leading inside...into a staircase, down to a tunnel below ground level. Once Artèmi's team were inside, they would be trapped. Artèmi's team hesitated at the threshold for a moment, checking for traps. And then they stepped through the arch and started down the stairs, slowing every few steps to cast analysis charms.
Liz couldn't believe their luck, Artèmi was so fucked — she had to bite her lip to keep down thrilled giggles, her chest quivering with restrained breath, practically bouncing on her toes.
Once their team was far enough that they wouldn't see it, Liz dropped the girls' hands, cast an illusion of glowing words against the ground. I'm following them, hit hard when they're distracted. Wait next to the door, I'll quick step out, if they follow me they'll be surrounded.
Liz immediately started walking, letting the illusion dissolve, she was hopping up the steps when an illusion appeared curving along the archway: DON'T GET DEAD. Snorting, she shook her head to herself, and stepped through the arch.
The stairs didn't go very deep, only a single flight, ending at a narrow tunnel just below street level — the air feeling dusty and still, but well-lit with orange glowing crystals fit to the wall every couple metres. Liz advanced slowly, feeling for any trap or detection spells Artèmi's team might have left behind them, eyes straight ahead, watching the trio pick their way along. The tunnel ended after a dozen metres or so at some kind of room, Artèmi's team pausing at the entrance for a minute before stepping inside.
Liz walked right up to the threshold — marked by a glinting bronze archway, formed into curling lines of vines, shining metal leaves and flowers — and then froze only a step away. There was a prickle of magic within the archway, some kind of paling — they'd left a trip-line, to alert them if someone tried to sneak in behind them. She was close enough to see everything she needed to, though: opposite the archway was some kind of altar, a gleaming bronze statue of a person standing over it with hands raised. To both sides were glass-fronted cabinets, showing glimpses of the artefacts inside, cases and trunks that presumably hid coins. Alexis was straight ahead, poking at the altar, Artèmi and Delacour scanning over the storage to either side.
Perfect.
She waited until all three of them were occupied picking away at the protections around one thing or another. Edging a couple steps back, "Svartísi hvíðu!" the spellglow — thick and solid black, sparkling silvery like stars in the night — aimed straight at Alexis. (She had the bag, and could firewalk out at any time, she needed to be downed first.) Alexis perked up and turned to look this way, feeling the magic coming, but she reacted too slowly — before she could even try to lean out of the way the spellglow struck her, shifting into a tapered blob of hard black ice, glinting in the magical light. That shouldn't actually hurt Alexis, but she assumed elemental ice magic was as bad for lilin/veela as light magic was for Liz.
Besides, she wasn't done. There was shouting in the room, the other two reacting, a clattering noise from something being knocked over, but before they could do anything Liz was already casting her second spell. "Apó astrapás sintétripso!" Burning down her arm, the magic leapt from her wand with a brilliant flash of light and a physical kick, shoving her back, but she let herself move with the momentum, turning and sprinting away even as the curse struck with a harsh, wall-shaking boom, a clinking and hissing of shattering ice and glass, grinding and tearing of stone and metal, the sizzling and snapping of electricity, a warm gust of wind blowing past her with the shockwave, already carrying the smell of ozone and smoke...
She tensed at a flare of frigid nerves along her back, her hair standing on end, threw herself against the wall — a burning hot light spellglow flashed past her to crash into the stairs with a roar of fire, intense enough the stone was left glowing. Lurching away from the wall and turning on her heel, "Arcum fragmentum!" the swirling motion of her arm casting the arc spell in a tight spiral, dashed into a sprint again. Behind her she heard a staccato popping and plinking and clattering as the edges of the spiral struck the stone walls of the tunnel, and then an almost avian-sounding screech of pain quickly followed by a confused cacophony as the remainder of the curse expended itself, the section of the stairs struck with the light curse from before was still hot enough she could feel it all along her front, instead of climbing them she dug in her feet and leapt into an angled quick-step—
Liz came flying out of the archway, the quick-step fading in mid-air dropping her into a shaky landing, staggering a few steps. Dismissing her concealment spells with a swish of her wand, "Alexis and Delacour are down, I don't know about Artèmi." She skipped back further from the entrance to the tunnel, opening up a little space. Artèmi couldn't do the firewalking thing, or even quick-step, if she was still in it she'd have to come out on foot, and—
There was a bright glow of golden light blooming in the tunnel, Liz reflexively leapt to the side — one of those homing sunlight arrows from their last duel zipped right through where she'd been a second ago. "Rḗtte!" the bolt of lighting snapped through the archway, booming and crackling, following up with—
She abandoned her curse and threw up an elemental shield instead as a twisting maelstrom of red and white flame came spiralling out through the archway, arcing a few metres through the air to strike the ground a bit to Liz's right. The whirlwind of fire expelled itself as it landed, rushing out from the epicentre in a wave — the flames struck Liz's shield as a physical force, it held but she was still thrust backward, stumbling a few steps before she got her footing again.
Liz blinked — shrouded with a few lingering wisps of moody flame and curls of smoke, Artèmi straightened up to her full height right where that weird bloody fire tornado thing had landed. Fuck, how the hell did she do that?!
She came out cursing, a rapid rain of spellglows spat out with flicks and swipes of her wand, Liz leaned around the first, blocked an arc spell, dodged another point spell, and then deflected one, two, three in a row, the curses so intensely light her fingers went numb from the cold—
—and Artèmi staggered, her last curse flying wide, barely leaning out of the way of a vivid pink spellglow, striking the wall past her, the impact site abruptly icing over blue and white, an orangeish barrier appeared with a thrum, barely in time to catch a torrent of greenish flame.
The dark slicing curse from Liz, though, slipped right through the elemental shield without slowing.
Artèmi staggered back, one arm dropping to hug around her hips, a line cut through her dress halfway around her middle, the fabric drooping open, trails of blood already starting to well up from the wound. Gritting her teeth, Artèmi glared at Liz, silvery eyes bright, her aura seeming to faintly flicker white and pale blue. She dropped to her knees, ducking, spellglows from Liz and one of the girls crossing over her head, her wand stabbing out toward Liz—
Before she could react, an eye-wateringly bright beam of golden light was piercing through her chest — it burned, intensely cold, Liz reflexively trying to cringe away. She tripped over her own feet, falling hard onto her bum, rocking back and hugging herself, gritting her teeth against the frigid magic spreading through her chest, her eyes watering, fuck fuck fuck...
"Liz!" A hand landed on her shoulder, she reflexively jerked away, but it was just Susan. "Liz, are you okay?"
Her teeth chattering a little, she groaned, "Yeah, I'm fine, let me just..." Sucking in a long slow breath, she channelled the darkest magic she could, and let it flow out and fill her aura. It hurt, Artèmi's light and Liz's dark magic destructively interfering through her chest, snapping and crackling and burning — and it probably felt weird from the outside too, she heard Katie and Susan both stagger back, surprise and concern spanging from their minds — but after a moment the searing chill stopped spreading, and then disappeared entirely.
Of course, she was still left feeling flushed and shaky and nauseous, but that was better than being eaten up from the inside by whatever the fuck that spell was — second time Artèmi had hit her with that fucking thing now, ugh...
"Liz?"
"I'm fine." She pushed herself upright — she hadn't noticed she'd flopped over to lie on her back — blinked her eyes open. It took a second to force her head to stop spinning, make out Katie and Susan hovering over her, the garden around them, some of the plants fitfully burning, colouring the air with smoke. She didn't see Artèmi. "You get her?"
"Yeah, she's down."
"Hit her with a nasty-looking two-stage piercing curse," Susan said, tilting her head toward Katie. "She's not getting up again any time soon. Seemed she was more focussed on hitting you with that golden light than defending herself. What was that?"
"Dunno, but whatever it was it gives me instant light magic toxicity. I think she knew she was going to lose, so she wanted to saddle me with feeling awful for the rest of the Task. Bitch, honestly..."
"Right then, you focus on channelling dark magic for a bit, and I'll go down and pick up their bag. Susan, keep an eye on her?"
"No," Liz snapped, shaking her head. "It's a mess down there, it could be dangerous. Cover each other — I'll put an aversion paling up over the garden." Letting herself go limp, she flopped back against the grass with a sigh. A little wave of her hand, "Go, I'll be fine."
Once she'd cast the paling, she tried to relax, letting dark-tinted magic constantly well up through her aura. She did feel rather nauseous, light-headed, and she suspected that wasn't going to get much better. Trying to counteract the contamination with dark magic could prevent light magic toxicity from worsening, and might weaken it a little bit, but it couldn't actually be reversed without proper treatment — and the potions for that weren't in the healing kit they'd been provided with. (Too easy to overdose, which can cause serious organ damage, not safe for amateurs.) She had a nasty feeling that the rest of this Task was going to be fucking miserable.
But still — staring up at the pretty blue sky overhead, speckled here and there with fluffy white clouds glowing in the sunlight — Liz could feel herself grinning.