Welcome one and all to another chapter of The Philosophy of Fear.
Where we finally get to Paititi and the horrors that lay within.
On with the show.
Artemis, Llamp'u mountain, Paititi.
Caught in the rays of the overhead sun, Paititi looked to be just a shadow set into the side of the mountain. But as Artemis stood on the wall of the once great city, looking over it, she could see what it truly was; a monument of mortal hubris. The hundreds of thousands of blocks of what was once gold were used to build the city of the Mesoamerican, directed by the gods and built by mortal hands. At its peak, the city houses the Mesoamerican Gods, their children, their followers, and most importantly, their Magicians. This is where they came, both half-bloods and Magicians, to learn how to control their powers, to learn the rites and rituals of their gods.
But now it was a blackened stain on the earth. The gold that made up the walls, stairs, houses, and statues was now molded over by a blackish taint that reminded Artemis of the black boils of plague victims almost seven hundred years ago. The smell that wafted up from the city reminded her of the piles of the dead during that time, the foul smell of rotting plague victims lingered even in her immortal mind as something that could not be forgotten. The air was heavy and stagnant, it weighed on Artemis like the humidity of the jungles below the mountain, but it wasn't a sticky heat; it was a smothering cold. It was a wound carved into reality from ages past by mortal hands with the sacraments of the gods.
From her place on the top of the wall, Artemis could look over all of Paititi. Her eyes scan the skyline of the once holy city noting the oddities of it with her own eyes. The large terraced gardens clung to the sides of the wall that ran around the city, once filled with corn, potatoes, squash, beans, and peppers, but now all dead and petrified like ancient wood. The fields weren't worked or tilled, nor was it overgrown, it simply seemed that time had stopped for nature within the city. Aqueducts loomed high over the city of Paititi, where once it funneled clean mountain spring water to the shining city of the gods, it was now as tainted as the city below it. The waterways were now clogged with pollution, rendered fat, and bones, causing the spring water to overfill and spill over the sides of the wall to stop any of the life-giving substance from entering the city.
The different temples that stood within the city were all desecrated by the same blackish taint that corrupted the rest of the blocks of gold that made up the city. Artemis eyed the rising platforms of the different ziggurats and temples dedicated to the different gods that once called Middle and South America home. She couldn't make any true details of any of the temples and so she couldn't tell which temple belonged to what God, but it didn't matter to Artemis. Only the temple was located in the middle of the city, towering up to the sun. It was like one of the Aztec Ziggurats with perfectly stacked stones on each level, a platform jutted out from the temple three-quarters of the way up with an altar sitting in the middle of it. But what Artemis wanted was the temple at the top of the ziggurat, where her Godhood waited for her.
But, to get it, she would need to cut through the city below.
Artemis takes a deep breath of befouled air, almost choking on the taste of death and stagnation, before taking a single step forward. She falls the short distance, landing on her feet with her knees bent and throwing herself into a roll. She stops in the shadow of one of the smaller temples and springs up before pushing herself against the wall, holding her breath. Artemis' eyes dart up and down the small back alley she landed in, not daring to move as her eyes scan for any movement in turn. Artemis lets out a soft breath before crouching low and begins to move slowly and deliberately through the back alley and around the temple.
Artemis stops at an intersection of the alley, poking her head from around the corner to take a look into one of the main streets of Paititi. She freezes at what she sees, pulling herself into the unmoving shadows with narrow eyes as she sees one of the main reasons she didn't want Harry to come to this accursed place. Clothes long rotted away and all manner of identifying sex was stripped from the humanoid abomination, its skin was dried and withered, pulled back over desiccated muscle and ancient bones. It shambled down the street, the few patches of wispy hair shifting back and forth, its shrunken stomach was split open and strands of dried-out organs hung out of the hole. The flesh wrapped around its skull was pulled tight over bone and the eyes gouged out leaving nothing but empty back pits.
A Corpo Seco.
A soul so evil and vile that every form of afterlife rejected them, so they were cursed to wander the world unable to reach an ending for their soul. While this would be the normal case for such a creature, Paititi was a wholly unique case for the creatures thanks to the Magician's own hubris. But curse aside, they were incredibly dangerous undead creatures. Incredibly strong and fast, known to be able to rip even a demi-god to pieces with their claw-like hands in a matter of seconds. Their touch withered and desiccated anything living they touched, their bites were guaranteed to spread infections even against those protected from disease, like her hunters. The Corpo Seco were also very aggressive and were known to attack anything living, be it mortal, demigods, or even animals to vent the rage they had at the living.
Artemis, in her current form, had to be careful. Even with the strength of her lieutenant, she wasn't able to overcome more than three of the Corpo Seco at once, and even if she was a god, Artemis didn't think she could stop them all. Not because they were too powerful, no, it was because the Corpo Seco that resided in Paititi was simply too cursed to die.
Artemis holds her breath as she watches the undead creature steadily walk past the opening of the alleyway before she moves once more. Keeping low and quiet, she moves like a shadow around the bend in the walls of Paititi, stopping only to peek around the corner to see if the coast is clear. She was looking for a clear shot to the temple in the middle of the city, but to her misfortune, she found none. Frowning, Artemis decides to cut through one of the temples to get to the upper floors to hopefully move across the rooftops.
No doors existed inside of Paititi, whether by design or the passage of time, Artemis does not know but finds it a blessing as she slips in the back of one of the large temples. She passes through rooms full of broken pottery and the etched stone walls befouled with the same taint that covered the outside of the temple. She doesn't pause to inspect the pictographs of blackened gold displayed on the walls, carvings of long-dead gods, and better days for fallen civilization. Artemis did not need to know what the Mesoamerican Gods tried to teach their children and Magicians, for it didn't matter in the end.
They were dead after all.
Artemis stops at the doorways to check the next room and breathes out a sigh of relief as she sees the room destroyed, but empty. She swiftly passes through it, ignoring the destroyed altar and shrines dedicated to a large cat-like God with bleeding fangs before making her way up the stairs to the next floor. As Artemis reaches the top of the stairs she peeks around the open air chamber and freezes. A Corpo Seco was hanging off the ground by a thick strap of leather wrapped around its neck facing away from her, its body ideally swinging in the breeze coming through the large windows.
Artemis hears whispers in the wind. She had thought that her father leaving her the divine skill to speak and understand all the languages of the earth was to make sure she could get by. But as she heard the words that were transcribed in the wind, she now knew why Zeus had left her with that ability.
"Let it be done," a man's voice whispered in the wind. "Let it be done and let me die, please, please, let me die," it begged in the moments before the Corpo Seco hung itself in hopes of ending its suffering. Artemis doesn't even breathe as she moves as quickly and quietly makes her way across the room and out one of the windows. Her feet hit the railing with nary a sound before she forces the words on the wind from her mind and climbs to the roof of the temple.
She lets out a shaky breath and tries not to think about the still living hanging corpse just below her as she crawls over to peek over the ledge of the temple's roof. Artemis frowns at what she sees in the street below the temple, for what was once hallowed ground for both gods and demigods, was now just a blackened and corrupted road paved with bones. The scattered bones of men and beast covered the main roads of Paititi, mostly piled up on the side of the temples where they were kicked over time. Many a soul had tried to breach Paititi to claim the fountain that the city was worth over the last few hundred years. From the Spanish conquistadors to the native tribes, to whole groups of mercenary wizards. They all had one thing in common, they all had failed and lay scattered across the golden city.
"Just how many?" Artemis thinks to herself as she surveys the bone-riddled streets. "Just how many have this city claimed? Hundreds? Thousands? The same amount that has died in the attempt to take the city," she thought grimly.
Artemis jumps from one temple to the one across from it, right through another open-air window, rolling as she lands. The coast was clear from what she had seen from across the way, but still, she paused, even her breath, and took her time to listen. After a moment of silence, she moves again, slipping out the opposite window and quickly climbing down into the alley. The alley was shaped like a Z that lay in between two builds, she quickly followed the path that led her deeper into the city. Artemis tries to ignore the graffiti written in blood and excrement on the wall as she passes it.
"God has abandoned this place and we were fools to enter."
Artemis couldn't help but agree with the body of the dead conquistador that lay under the words. But she didn't stop, Artemis couldn't, she had very little time to reach the apex of the city and reclaim her godhood. Harry was more than likely on his way, she wasn't foolish enough to think that simply tying him down was going to stop her son from following her to this accursed place. Artemis did not doubt that Harry was beyond mad with her for what she had done, but Artemis would rather have her son mad at her than dead. Artemis would rather have Harry think she was concerned with his safety than figure out what had happened to the city and the gods who called it home once, even if he had figured out some of it.
Artemis takes her time, slipping in and out of the temples and the spaces in between them with ease. Avoiding the main roads filled with bones and the black-scaled serpents that slithered to and fro inside the city. It was an oddity, the Corpo Seco would attack anything living in a fit of rage, but they blatantly ignored the snakes that crawled past them and over their feet.
The winds whispered the thoughts of the undead around her. Some begged for a death that would never come, some cursed Inkarri for what he had done, but most had lost their minds to their curse and rage. They were like prayers to Artemis as the winds spoke the words softly in her ears and every time she shivered with revulsion and pain. Revulsion at the pure rage and desperation in their voices, and pain because Artemis felt as if she could feel the Corpo Seco's pain that they were unendingly in.
But still, Artemis continued deeper into the city.
She once more slips into the back of a temple, heading up a staircase to the top floor, only to stop and turn back around when she almost came face to face with one of the undead. The undead creature was kneeling before an altar, raising a copper blade that had been worn down to almost nothing, and repeatedly stabbing himself in the chest. Trying to find a heart that had long ago turned to nothing but dust as he begged and pleaded for its life to end. Artemis swallowed her discontent at the mortal's fate before heading back downstairs as quietly as a cat.
Artemis stops before the back entrance to the temple and peeks around the corner, almost cursing as she does so, two of the Corpo Seco had wandered into the alley. They were small, no older than children of six or seven from their height, with thin limbs and open bellies with dried organs hanging from the open and ancient wounds. Artemis quickly tucks herself into the shadowed corner of the temple to hide herself from the undead children. Now stuck in one place with no exit, Artemis could do nothing but wait till either the undead upstairs left down the stairs or for the children to move on.
Artemis keeps her breath even and her heartbeat steady to avoid the building panic in her chest. If even one of the Corpo Seco saw her, they would call out to the others and that would not end well for Artemis in mortal form. As she waited, Artemis heard an odd sound. It was like cracking or splitting wood coming from where the children were, and with her curiosity getting the better of her, Artemis peeks around the doorway only for her panic to turn into horror and heartbreak.
One of the undead children was lying flat on the ground while the other was kneeling at its head, raising a large brick of blackened gold over its head before bringing it down onto the head of the child lying down. Every time the brick hit the child's head, there was a sickening crack of the skull being broken like old dried wood. But when the brick was raised once more, the skull would repair itself, only to be crushed once more.
Artemis pulled herself back into the shadows of the temple.
Crack.
She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to erase the sight from her mind.
Crack.
Trying to will the sound to stop.
Crack.
But it echoed around the empty city like a shot from Sophie's rifle.
Crack.
And the worst of it for Artemis was the fact she could not help them.
Crack.
Since her birth on the island of Delos, Artemis had known her role among the Gods of Olympus; the ancient domain of the Hunt had called out to her and claimed her to be its Goddess among the Greek Gods. She had no complaints about it, she accepted it and it, in turn, accepted her. But over the many centuries, since she was born, the mortals had thrust upon her many different roles. Artemis was the midwife of the gods due to helping with the birth of Apollo, one she accepted without complaint and still helped the mortals who prayed to her for help during a strenuous and painful labor. (Artemis could still recall Lily Evans' prayer to her.) She was given the moon by the Romans, one she had resented at first, but after Selene had given her blessing to her, Artemis began to take care of the domain as she did with the hunt.
But the title that Artemis held true to the most, other than The Chaste Hunter, was Kourotrophic, the protector of children.
Crack.
It was a role that Artemis took as seriously as she did with the Hunt. She was to protect and guide children and many in her hunt were those she had done just that for, she rarely ever failed in that role, but her failures had always haunted her.
Crack.
Like with Harry.
Crack.
Like right now.
Crack.
"Was this the lesson you wanted me to learn, father?" Artemis thinks to herself as her heart twists in pain for the cursed children. "That I can not protect them all? Or that some can not be saved?" She thinks, but nothing answers her back.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Harry Potter, Llamp'u Mountain.
Harry was running as fast as his two legs could move, a blinding pace he set as he ran up animal trails and leaped over large stones in his way. He flew like a bat out of hell or an arrow out of a bow, stopping only to scale a cliff face when needed or find the path once more as he steadily made his ascent to Paititi.
"Yessssss! Yessssss! Fassssster two legsssss!" A small voice hissed into his ear from his current passenger wrapped around his shoulders and neck.
"I'm going as fast as I can!" Harry hissed back as the large black snake wrapped around him. It was an odd thing to feel the cold jagged scales resting against his neck, but not cutting him. It was a familiar feeling, like the one he got when petting the Thestrals back at Hogwarts, one he knew intimately but not one he could place where he knew it from.
After meeting the serpent in his tent, Harry had thought he was going to have to kill it according to most of his previous experiences with its kind. But the snake was actually quite friendly and more curious than anything.
"We left city to hunt for the piggies but coulds not find them but then we tassssted you, and you ssssssmelllsssss of home," the snake explained.
"City?" Harry asked as he found the Swiss army knife that could pick any lock and undo any knot to free his wrists. "Do you mean Paititi?" He asked.
"What isssss Paititi? City is city on the big hill," the snake said as it slithered onto the bed to look at Harry. Harry frowned as he realized the snake would not know a thing about names.
"The city, is it made of shiny stone?" Harry tried and thankfully the snake seemed to understand what he was talking about.
"Yessssss, onssssssse long long ago, now not sssssssshiny at all," the serpent supplied with a nod of his head.
"Can you show me the way? Can you show me a way in?" Harry asked quickly before watching the snake's head bob up and in down.
"Yessssss, we willssssss sssssshow you da way into the chamber belowssssss home sssssssmelling one," it eagerly agreed before slipping off his bed and leading him up the mountain. The snake wasn't all that fast and Harry wasn't all that patient at the moment, so he picked up the serpent and started to run, much to the enjoyment of the snake.
The snake was showing Harry a winding path around the mountain, leading him to the west side of the mountain. When Harry had asked it if they should be heading up, the serpent had shot it down telling Harry that he was bringing him to the chamber below.
"What the hell does that even mean?" Harry had asked, frustrated with the serpent. But all the snake did was tug around his neck to direct him toward the West.
Finally after what felt like hours of running and Harry almost out of breath, Harry felt the telltale tingle across his skin that alerted him to wards set up around the peak of the mountain. Harry stops to watch the stone facade of one side of the mountain to reveal the towering black city of Paititi. Harry's stomach turns at the sight as something deep within him, something instinctual flinches at the sight of the damned city causing him to frown. He was sure that back in its heyday, it would have been a sight to see while coming over the mountain pass. Harry could make out the tops of the rising temples over the large walls that were set into the mountain, the large complex system of aqueducts that seemed to span the city from the mountain's peak. Spring water fell from the aqueduct near the peak of the mountain, spilling over the edge of the city and down the side of the mountain creating a waterfall that continues down into a small valley in the side of the mountain.
It was a haunting sight to behold to Harry, where once the city that should have been a shining capital to the gods was now ruined beyond words. "Is that the city?" Harry hissed to the serpent around his neck.
"Yessssss, that isssss city where we ssssstay," the snake hisses back at him while bobbing its head up and down.
Harry's frown deepens. "So, that's what I smell like? That's your home?" He asks.
"No, not home. Jussssssst city, home is not here," the serpent says, almost sadly. "Be we aresssss clossssssse to the chamber, comesssss," the snake says before pulling on Harry once more in the direction it wanted him to go, Harry just sighs at the dumb snake before moving once more.
Artemis, Paititi.
She didn't know how long she spent hiding in the shadows listening to the Corpo Seco children trying to end their misery. She would have used shadows to figure out how long, but Artemis noticed fairly quickly that something was wrong with the shadows.
They didn't move.
The shadows were frozen, stuck at the exact position they were in when Paititi was originally cursed, not even the shadows of the undead moved merely sitting under them as single large blots under their feet. Artemis moved through the rest of the city in a daze, the suffering of all those left in Paititi clung to her like a miasma. All the souls that called out for an end and were ignored by all, for not even the gods, no matter how powerful they may be, could end the curse of Paititi. For now, Artemis saw what the city truly was, what it was made into.
It was a warning.
This was the second of its kind in the annals of time and carved into the earth that Artemis could recall. The first one washed ashore on Cyprus nearly four millennia ago, wounded and on death's door, hiding in the body of one of her Magicians. Ishtar was comatose for almost a full two weeks, even with her being tied to The Flame of the West. She had slept almost to the point where Zeus had ordered both herself and Hermes to go north to Mesopotamia to figure out what was going on. But Ishtar had awaked just before the order was given, her mortal vessel that held on for so long to see her mother safe was turned to ash as Ishtar had awaked.
Ishtar was comforted by Artemis' half-brother Ares and her uncle Poseidon as the Queen of Victory was in hysterics, babbling about a son of the Mesopotamian God of Murder. After Ishtar had calmed down, she explained to them what had happened.
El-nāsir, a magician of Nergal, had sacrificed nearly a thousand slaves in a ritual to try and usurp his own father as the God of Murder. It had failed spectacularly, for not only did El-nāsir was turned into a puppet by the very thing he called upon and forced into mantling with him. But the temple he had done the ritual in was wiped off the face of the earth with all his followers, but the magician was then forced to kill the gods of his people before dying himself.
The only thing that had survived the culling of the Mesopotamian pantheon was Ishtar. "It wanted me to survive, to tell you all what happened," Ishtar had said while sitting on the floor of the Olympian council Room, clutching the urn filled with what was left of her final daughter. The gods, their children, and even a vast majority of the monsters of that part of the world were all killed, all for a single message that echoed around the world.
"Do not let this happen again."
But it had, and the Mesoamerican Gods paid the price for not reigning in their magicians, allowing them to run free, and even going so far as to teach them the sacraments to touch powers beyond even the gods. If what happened to the Mesopotamian Pantheon was a message, Paititi was the warning shot with a single focus.
"There would not be a third warning,"
The power that be would turn the whole world into a Paititi if the gods failed again. Artemis wasn't near her father during the fall of Paititi, but she had heard that Zeus' reaction was a sight to see. It was soon after that Artemis' father and the rest of the Kings of the other pantheons came together for a moot at Point Nemo and a new law was put into place. No more Magicians from any pantheon, or at the very least, restricting the amount of them. Some of the other pantheons and the kings that ruled them went as far as culling every magician under them.
Artemis remembers the council meeting after the moot, the news, Hecate's anger but also her cold understanding, and she also remembers her own dismissive gesture to it all.
The memories play on a loop as Artemis climbs the steps to the top of the highest temple. The final steps up the top of the temple were flanked by large golden feathered serpent statues of Quetzalcōāl in his former glory. But now, they were tainted black like the rest of Paititi, to show that the once mighty god of the Aztec empire was as dead as the rest. The same fate that awaited any pantheon that allowed their magicians to try and reach beyond their station for power that should be left well enough alone.
Artemis steps onto the large platform on the way to the top of the temple, her eyes are immediately drawn to the middle of it. While the platform was made from the same tainted gold blocks as the rest of the temple, the ritual site, the center point of what was Evoked by Inkarri, was far worse. The structure around the ritual site was warped and twisted like the gold was superheated and drawn up to the sky like thread into a spindle. The warped gold was as black as night and jagged like a serrated blade, poison ice clung to the gold even under the oppressive heat of the South American summer sun. An atmosphere seemed to have settled on the platform of the temple, one that Artemis had only felt one other time before. A divot was gouged into the brickwork across the platform long and like claws that the twisted and jagged gold had risen along the edge of. Like some great thing had lashed out in raw anger to scour what had made it angry in the first place away.
There, kneeling in the divot, in a pool of black sludge, was the man responsible for Paititi's downfall and the death of his own gods. The sludge came up to his waist as his head was bowed, looking into the reflectionless pool of his own blasphemy. The one hundred hearts of the poor souls that he sacrificed floating around him. He looked just like the rest of the Corpo Seco's that infested the black city, dried and sunken in flesh, looking more like a mummy from Egypt than anything else. Ancient and pitted gold hung around his form, from a large necklace to armbands and wristbands. His opulence worn on him was now a part of him as the bands seemed to have sunken and fused with his desiccated flesh.
Artemis watches the being formally known as Inkarri twitch before his head slowly turns to look at her. His eye sockets were empty and filled with nothing by the light of hatred for all living things, Artemis was sure if he knew that she was a goddess, the rage would have been a blinding light. Inkarri stands from the pool of sludge, the viscous liquid dripping off of him like oil as it fully turns to Artemis. What was left of his armor had been blackened like the city around Inkarri, his body giving off pops and snaps as he stood straight. Clawed hands curl as the atmosphere around the ritual site begins to thicken and weigh heavily on Artemis.
"Have you been waiting here all this time?" Artemis asks the rising figure as a cloud of black dust begins to gather around the dried-out corpse in front of her. "Hoping that your sacrifice would be accepted? That the last almost four centuries have been nothing but a bad dream?" she says as her bow falls into her hand as she glares at the forgotten prince, her eyes falling to his heart where a single scar did lay, one that was bone chilling familiar to her.
"Well!? Answer me! Inkarri!? Was this all that you hoped for when you called to The End!? When you forced a mantle with it!?" Artemis roars, the images of the cursed women and children that the creature standing before her had doomed to a fate worse than Tartarus when he had their hearts cut out of them while they still lived.
All the answer she gets in return is a mindless roar from Inkarri, the forgotten prince, the fool who manteled The End.
Harry Potter, caverns below Paititi.
The snake had led him under the waterfall and deep into a section of underground caves just beyond it. It was hard to find at first with the entrance hidden by shrubbery, which was honestly the first thing Harry found as off with the cave. The overgrowth of the cave entrance looked unnatural to Harry's eyes, like it had been rushed to grow or something similar. Then there was the familiar buzz of a ward deeper into the cave, Harry felt the Hunt growling in his mind as a very powerful ward, a Notice-Me-Not or some type of repellent ward if he had to guess, tried to turn him around.
Harry was just thankful for his ability to see in the dark as he walked deeper into the cavern as the serpent around his neck egged him deeper still. The snake wanted to bring him to the way up to Paititi it knew, which was through the caves below the city itself.
"If I had a Sickle," Harry thinks to himself with a frown before looking down. In the dirt and sediment of the wet and humid cave floor Harry sees something he wasn't expecting before kneeling down to examine it. A footprint was pressed deep into the muddy floor, the shoe size was bigger than his with less details along the ridges and his didn't sink in as deep as this one did. "A guy maybe? Heavier than me and taller by his stride," Harry thinks with a frown as he was unable to come up with a reason why anyone normal would come to a cave right below a cursed city.
"Come two legsssss, come! We are clossssssse," the pitch black serpent whispers into his ear before Harry stands and moves deeper into the caves.
Harry's hand moves to his back to rest on the handle of his hunting knife. He wasn't about to be caught off guard by anything down in the dark dank hole Harry found himself in. It wasn't as if he didn't trust the serpent, it was more that Harry didn't trust what the serpent saw as a threat.
But still, Harry ventures deeper into the cave, seeing it open up into more of a cavern and as soon as it does Harry is hit by a scent. It was a noxious nauseous thing that clung to the inside of his nose and had Harry flinching and covering his nose as he fought off the want to gag as he stepped into what is the main chamber. Harry feels the tingle of wards set around the entrance to the cavern as he takes in the sight around him. Worked and carved black stone much like the temples and Ziggurats of the Aztec empire, images were carved into the walls of two figures standing over the skeletons of the dead.
Towering pillars went along the edges of the cavern as well as six standing in the middle of the room that led to a large stone door. Each pillar looked to be painstakingly carved with various pictures of painful deaths, with both humanoid and animalistic figures sitting at the top of each pillar. But what Harry found the oddest was the witch light that illuminated the cavern, sheltered behind the ward just behind him to block the light from entering the cave behind him. Off to his left sat a small tent in the corner of the cavern that Harry turns to and begins to walk towards.
"What are you doing two legsssss, we needssss the door," the serpent says from his neck before slithering off of him and onto the floor.
"Hello?" Harry calls out, his hand never leaving the handle of his blade. "Is anyone there?" He asks the shadows on the wall just before he watches the flap of the tent shift a bit before something steps out.
"Meow," one of the oddest looking cats Harry had ever seen says as it steps out of the tent to investigate who had called out. At first Harry thought it was a very ostentatious golem, but the more he inspected it, the more he saw it was very much a living creature. It was as big as a house cat and looked almost like one, but its fur shines in the witch light like gold with strikes of silver cutting across its back like a Tabby cat. As Harry tilted his head, he realized that it didn't just look like gold and silver, it was fine threads of precious metals. The cat's eyes were finely cut sapphire for one eye and an emerald for another as it blinked in surprise at just seeing Harry before an eerily familiar smile crossed the cat's face.
But before Harry could say anything, a voice spoke up from behind him. "Well, you're a bit young to be with the ICW," a male voice says as Harry feels the tip of a wand jab him in the ribs. "I'd also wager you're not with ICE either, huh, Gringo?" the voice says as Harry slowly turns his head to look behind him. A man slowly appeared in the room as the Disillusionment spell the man was wrapped in fell away.
"Well, just who are you then?" The man asks as his eyes that were the color of molten gold, swirling and bubbling as they seemed to glow in the darkness of the cavern, bore into Harry's own.
"Who the hell are you?" Harry asks rudely back as he glared at the man, uncaring about the wand in his ribs.
"Me?" The man with light brown skin and dark hair asks with a scuff. "Why, I'm just a humble grave robber," he says with a grin.
Chapter done!
It's been….a week for me guys, my insomnia is at its peak and I hate it.
I will be trying to get the next chapter out in the next few days seeing that my sleep schedule is kinda back to normal.
Kingsaxcul, Out!