Ethrex

'I have the patience of a saint; I will wait for a day if not a week.' Leon thought resting his face against the cold surface of the basement's wall, remembering the jerkies he found in the dead soldier's vest.

He even saw dripping taps in some rooms. So, he wasn't going to starve or die of thirst any time soon.

5 seconds went by before his saint-level patience wore off.

'They will come for ammo or at least to patrol… right?'

'Let's not be a dumb saint, I should think of a way to make them come down.' Leon decided.

Sadly, he didn't know any sound spells that would let him amplify his voice.

So, his cool idea of creating baby cries and creepy giggles to lure people into the basement, won't grace the reality.

'It's a sad state of affairs that. People generally go into darkness to see where the creepy giggles are coming from.' He cracked a wry grin.

Lost in thought, he didn't notice a spider climbing onto his nape.

"Oh! Screw off!" Leon muttered, throwing the crawling thing on his neck, not even bothering to check which insect decided he made a good wall.

Leon moved away from the trapdoor and started to pat himself, trying to shake off any more crawlies that joined in his task of cleaning the dusty walls of this fort.

As he checked every nook and cranny of his 'burrowed' military attire, he suddenly remembered the blood-soaked walkie-talkies he discarded.

With a hazy outline of a plan forming in his mind, Leon bolted towards the room he woke up in.

Ignoring the corpses, he took the walky-talky from the soldier's dead body whose cigarettes were looted.

Leon scoured the basement and found two rods the size of cigars before making his way into a room far away from the trapdoor.

He switched on the walky-talky and started to beat the hell out of a metal container with iron rods he found lying around.

His plan was simple: As these walky-talkies use bandwidth to communicate, the military definitely uses some secure frequency.

He was hoping that the soldiers would check where the noise was coming from instead of jumping to another secure frequency as simply jumping bandwidths is a waste even if they have multiple secure ones.

After 10 seconds of using his hands, he opened the lid of a small metal container and tossed the iron rods into it but not before charming them with a Leviosa spell.

He quickly snuck out of the room, leaving the walky-talky in the metal container, and vanished from the world.

The metal clanging sounds didn't disappear, Leon was controlling the rods to continue making noise.

The problem with the Leviosa spell was it wasn't made to move objects at high speed. So, controlling the rod to hit the walls of the metal container felt more exhausting than hitting the container with his hands which didn't see any exercises other than helping in the kitchen or washing dishes.

Just when he was thinking about taking a break and trying a different approach, something heavy moved above the trapdoor.

With a mighty creak, the trapdoor swung open before two soldiers jumped into the basement, ignoring the ladder, and scanning their surroundings with their rifles aimed.

Leon watched them from a distance, sticking to the roof like an overgrown lizard.

After the first two cleared the surroundings two more dropped onto the basement before they began to move towards the sound, with surgical precision.

After they disappeared from his sight, Leon quickly zipped across the roof and reached the trapdoor.

A glass shard charmed with notice me not spell levitated in front of him as he cut off the spell on the metal rods.

He didn't know the exact relationship between the distance and difficulty of the Leviosa spell, but controlling the rods felt more difficult if he didn't have their eyes on the objects.

So, it was a relief to finally end the spell on the rods.

Leon slowly let the shard peek out from the trapdoor.

The floor was brightly lit and empty. At least that was the case from the unclear reflection on the shard.

Using the ladder as support, he slowly crawled out of the trapdoor, hugging the floor so that his camouflage spell could do its work.

After some tense couple of seconds, Leon was safely stuck to the roof.

With a wave of his hand, he used Nox to cover his surroundings in darkness further increasing his chances of not being seen.

 He didn't care about the soldiers not finding the source of the sound.

He had stopped making the noise after the soldiers left the trapdoor, and with him hiding the walky-talky to the best of his ability. He most likely would have left the military outpost before they made sense of the sounds.

Just like that, Leon moved into the ground floor of the fort, escaping from its basement.

The fort was large, and judging from the number of soldiers he encountered their numbers were small.

Like an encroaching void, Leon left the darkness in his wake as he searched for a way out. Thankfully, there were no cameras for him to worry about people tracking the darkness and him.

It didn't take him long to find the exit.

A huge stone arch opened into terrain covered with bushes and trees. Stars twinkled in the night sky, trying to disperse the darkness that swallowed the fort without any success.

With the moon hiding in the clouds, only vague outlines were visible. But he could see a dirt path snaking away from the fort.

As Leon squinted his eyes to get a better look, the moon shyly peeked at the world from the clouds illuminating the path.

The mud road curved down after a dozen meters from the stone arch.

'Is this fort present on top of a hill?' he furrowed his eyebrows.

Four soldiers stood guard inside the arch with a barricade covering its entrance.

The ground was covered with scorch marks and debris, it looked like it had seen some explosions.

Thanking the God? Merlin? for the night sky, Leon zipped across the roof. With a Leviosa spell, he planned to slowly lift himself along the wall of the fort after exiting through the arch, before letting himself fall on the ground, away from the soldiers.

The entrance was huge unlike the rooms in the basement, so he was sure the soldiers weren't going to notice him.

Alas, just as he crossed the unsuspecting guards on the floor. The world stood still before losing all of its color.

'Bloody hell! What is it now?' Leon cursed as he suddenly found himself in the middle of absolute darkness.

He tapped the ground with his feet, it was there, hidden in darkness.

'Who bought me here? Is it really my ring's doing?' he wondered, rubbing his finger where his heir ring was supposed to be.

Like it was reacting to his thoughts a parchment appeared in front of Leon.

It circled him like a curious bird before words started to appear on the parchment.

Evaluation: pending…

Detected a pure and two complimentary paths.

Completed two paths(2/7)

Do you want to proceed with your final evaluation?

"What? Evaluation? Where am I?" Leon asked, taken back at the magical parchment.

Question detected.

Answer: Huh! Orin said that his heir would be clever. Did some troll bloodline get mixed with the Astraeus line?

"That's not an answer. Where am I? Did you kidnap me? How will I reach Hogwarts?" Leon asked, dubiously, after reading the supposed answer on the parchment.

Question detected.

Answer: You are in your room, drooling on your bed. Looking at the amount of drool, maybe you had a swamp Troll as an ancestor.

'I don't even wanna know if that is possible.'

As Hagrid flashed in his mind, he shivered. Leon always wondered whether love drives people crazy or wizards were just kinky in the Harry Potter world.

"So, I am in an illusion. What are you? What are the paths? What is this evaluation?" He asked ignoring the snide remarks and mental images of naked Trolls flashing in his mind.

'Getting an idea about my situation is more important than arguing with a piece of paper.' He said to himself.

Question detected.

Answer: What? Did Sphinx's bloodline get mixed with ours? What are the Astraeus descendants doing? It's okay, I guess. They should compensate for the prude Orin was.

"How the hell is that an answer to any of my questions?" Leon really wanted to punch the parchment even though it was giving out information about his house.

'Information about my house comes later. It isn't useful now.'

Question detected.

Answer: What's with the patience level of a Gryffindor? Yes, this is an illusion. I, Ethrex, am the overseer and creator of Astreaus's heir trials.

The parchment shook and became ethereal like it was melding with reality before continuing with the answer.

Hmm! There aren't any more heirs just like Orin predicted…. He changed me to create trails that will help the growth of the last sole heir. In my hay days, I was used to creating trails whose winner would become the House's head. Yes! I used to be a big deal, little Astraeus used to around cursing me. He he!

The parchment fluttered erratically before going still.

"You still didn't answer some of my questions," he muttered as he digested that information.

'Becoming a house head isn't much of a reward is it? I can only think of responsibilities that don't match the privileges.' 

Unlike what some purebloods like to portray, it isn't easy to gain a seat or maintain it in Wizengamot.

With anti-muggle sentiments all-time high during the founding of the ministry, the founders made tight-knit rules.

'Daphne did look like she agreed with the rules before she cut herself off and gave him just basics, on the train.' Shaking his head, he stared at the parchment waiting for more answers.

The parchment remained stationary in front of him, lazily fluttering in unseen wind.

Gritting his teeth, Leon asked again. He didn't know whether the parchment was messing with him or if it needed a question to reply.

"What are paths? Why should I take part in this evaluation?"

Question Detected.

Answer: Good, you didn't inherit too much from your Troll ancestor. There are seven paths- ways- that cover every way you can complete this evaluation. Your approach to escape was perfectly aligned with one pure and one complementary path. There are three pure paths and 4 complementary paths. I suggest you go back and try to complete more complimentary paths in this trial, your future trails will be shaped by the number of paths you complete. While pure paths are more of a talent thing, complementary paths aren't…. I can only let you know more about the paths after you are evaluated.

Words stopped appearing on the parchment like it was done with its answer but Leon jumped towards it to catch it, making the parchment weave out of his way and mockingly flutter at him, out of his reach.

"Why should I even participate in these so-called trials created by a parchment with a bloodline fetish?" Leon barked, the sudden kidnapping and tasks about his future were not making him charitable, especially when he was getting ignored while his future was getting decided.

Question detected.

Answer: Sheesh! I was wrong you inherited too much from your troll ancestor- No patience at all. I will answer your last question, no need to be a brute and try to destroy a millennia-old artifact because it made you repeat yourself.

You should participate in this evaluation because, even if you don't think that undergoing trials designed to help you grow- created by an ancient artifact like me- is more valuable than the entire Astraeus vault, the rating you receive at the end of each trial, including this one, will give you access to House vaults and properties.

That tempted the hell out of Leon, even if he could earn money himself. The 99 artifacts mentioned in the vault summary he received from the goblins intrigued him.

Artefact 77 supposedly identified him as the heir of Astraeus and only because of that the goblins sent him his heir ring- all according to Orin Astraeus's wishes.

"As it is an illusion, I won't get hurt right?" Leon asked tossing the thoughts about this 'Orin', weighing the pros and cons of participating in this evaluation.

Question detected.

Answer: Conditions not met. The question will not be answered.

Leon bit his lips at that.

'Does that mean my soul will get hurt or something,' he wondered before the words continued appearing on the parchment.

Just kidding. You will feel pain just like in the real world. You will even feel a paper cut. But you won't spoil Hogwarts beds with your blood or die here. Now, next time you come here, your performance will evaluated, and there are no more chances for you.

"Fine! Let's go." Leon muttered trying to hype himself.

The darkness receded. Leon was at the same place before the parchment appeared, hanging on the roof of the arch entrance, inches away from the outside.

'I tried to exit the fort and was teleported to level clear-level screen, just like a game.'

'Just like a game.' Leon repeated the sentence in his mind. Trying to come to terms with what he was going to do.

With a soft whisper and wave of his hand, four charred wooden pieces- the remains of the wooden gate of the arch- slowly darted towards the soldiers, invisible under the cover of moonless sky. 

'As the parchment, Ethrex, said his stealthy approach made him complete two paths, one pure and one complimentary. Pure paths are supposed to be dependent on talent. If we assume pure paths are charms, transfiguration, and spells(DADA), I only used charms in my escape and my talent in it most likely made me complete the pure path and the complementary path is most likely related to my stealth approach.'

'And in games when there is a stealth approach there is a killing everything in their path approach too.'

The four wooden pieces turned into four sharp needles, hidden in the darkness. Leon's breath hitched as he observed the four men below him, the reality of what he was going to do pressed down on his very being.

He even forgot to breathe as he observed the soldiers vigilantly guarding the entrance to the fort, unaware that they were going to get murdered.

'No! It's not murder. This is just a game… Or is it, really?' His hand shivered at that treacherous thought. 'Am I really in an illusion?'

 ....................................

A/N: Next chap, same time tomorrow.