Chp 33.3: Samhain

Location: Hogwarts

Date: October 31st (Halloween)

Waking up before dawn's bright light had breached the end of the valley, Adam got out of bed having become somewhat accustomed to the lessons and order that the Hogwarts routine impressed on its students.

Pulling on his socks and trainers he decided to go for a run.

----

It was a rather chilly morning, Adam's breath escaping in great clouds of smoke, but Adam seemed rather unphased in a black T-shirt and shorts.

Passing through the northwest gate house he continued running over the bridge and past the waterfall descending from the mountains to the west. Finally, he reached the final outer gate of the grounds lined by Gargoyles and sighing made to turn around.

But something made him stop, something strange.

Turning round he felt a strange shift in the warp to the north, he stepped through the gate and then one step past it. Before he knew it he was at a broken part of a cobbled fence as the road bent north-eastward towards Hogsmeade, visible to the north.

He stepped over the broken portion and continued his jog into the forest on a path long overgrown.

Passing the remains of a long abandoned camp tucked into the mountainside he continued on following the curves of the cliff, skirting the very edge of the dark forest, until he found himself coming out of the forest and onto the open rolling hills of the Scottish Highlands. The winds swept harder battering him the thinning trees around him bending precariously.

Running up the river, which was rushing down the side valley he was ascending, he was careful to keep his distance around a group of Dugbogs grunting aggressively in the centre of the water way.

His heart thundered but his breathing was even as he kept running at a pace that would put an Olympic sprinter to shame.

The mist had grown thick by this point as the steepness increased drastically.

'Adam'

'Adam'

'Adam, where are you going' screamed Calcifer in his head.

'I'm going ... I was going for a run' said Adam coming out of a sort of trance that he was in. Looking around, he spied a great ruined structure peering out of the mist.

Approaching it, the ruined remains of great stone curtain walls revealed themselves and the central mass of what would have contained stain glass panels, which stood defiant to time above him casting a shadow over him despite the attempts of the surrounding foliage to pull it down under it's weight.

'How bizarre, I wonder what this place was' pondered Adam?

Passing under the gatehouse of the curtain wall, it's doors long eroded he came to a courtyard.

Looking around there seemed to be no way up, only a pile of rubble which may at one point been a staircase.

'If only I knew a spell for this'.

'Guess I'm going to have to climb just like old times eh Calcifer'.

'I don't think it's a good idea to explore, you going into a trance and arriving here isn't the best first sign'.

'But I need to, I've just got this feeling, I feel something in the warp it's like a cry too quiet to be heard, like something far away'.

Adam lengthened his nails into claws, biting into the rock as he ascended to the main castle area following the next curtain wall round passing a vivid depiction of a sphinx, before spotting an opening leading into a dark passageway which seemed to enter into the earth.

'To the depths below we go'.

----

Entering into the subterranean passageways he stepped around dripping streams of water infiltrating the basement levels.

Passing through a number of ante chambers he came upon a great iron door sealed shut almost like a bank vault, surrounded by the remains of some kind of steam system long rusted, the only evidence of it's existence was the remaining orange oxidation on the wall.

'It looks almost like the vault door at Gringotts but there doesn't seem to be an opening'.

'I think the way in stopped working a couple of hundred of years ago ... Let's go back' said Calcifer her uncomfortableness audible in her tonality, something was setting the daemon on edge'.

Backtracking, he looked around the dimly lit chamber the form of the room lit only by the reflection of the light from one faint sunbeam coming through a crack in the other side of the room.

'We could do with some light' said Calcifer.

'From where, I don't have a torch or anything, couldn't you conjure fire for me you being a fiery daemon engine daemon and all that'.

'Sometimes, you do so well coming across smart, but it's times like these I realise you're an idiot' berated Calcifer.

'Huh'.

'You have magic, Lumos, even Incendio would work, that ringing a bell' Do you even pay attention in classes?

'Yeahhh...' thought Adam embarrassed, pulling his wand out of his pocket and grimacing as it tried to corrupt him immediately.

Incendio cast Adam again and again limiting his magic as much as he possibly could, small gouts of flames bursting from it like the flash of an exhaust pipe.

The fire exposed a statute with a basin beneath it. Coming closer, the strange call felt stronger. The gouts of flames still leapt a foot or so from his wand. He knelt down inspecting the statue of a wizard which seemed unaffected by the passage of time.

'Strange'

Despite his best efforts looking at the statue didn't reveal any of its secrets. Getting back up he turned around to inspect the rest of the room as a single spark fell into the the basin.

Vwhooommph

The basin now a brazier burst into flames, the whole section of wall statue and all revolving around as it ignited leaving only an alcove with some kind of circular stone plate on it.

Adam stepped back shocked.

Carefully prodding at the newly created alcove with his foot.

'Seems safe enough'

He stepped onto it only for it to spin back around exposing a small hidden chamber. Straight ahead was a stone motif of a mermaid.

Turning either way to look around the room on one side was a chest above which was the motif of a griffin.

'Hey look Calcifer it's you'.

Adam, walked up to the chest forcing its rusted latch-up.

Pushing its large lid up and over he found a large bundle of items, but having opened the chest he noticed through the gap where the hinge was a sparkling gemstone glint, which he felt drawn towards. Pushing back his curiosity about the items in the chest he reclosed the chest peering over to look behind it to see a foot-tall bonelike pedestal much like a golf tee set with a shimmering red gem on its tip.

'What is it?'.

'Khornes a pacifist ... and that's a Tear of Isha' said Calcifer astonished.

'A tear of Isha? How can someone's tear be a gemstone?' replied Adam confused.

'What did Kaldor even teach you but really the question should be why here there's only supposed to be a few dozen in existence throughout the universe' answered Adam reaching out and plucking the stone from the pedestal before popping it in his pocket.

'Don't just gra- .... You picked it up, you're lucky nothing happened, they're said to be legendary relics of the eldar and eldar relics bring as much calamity as the do opportunity'.

"Are you going to tell me what it is or are you going to just wander around the topic?" said Adam reopening the chest.

"Fine I will tell you, you ungrateful boy. In simple terms, they are Eldar soul stones those that contain the most revered and powerful Eldar seers of ages past some predating even the war in heaven, but Eldar legend speaks that they are older still and not of mortal make. The legend goes that the Tears of Isha are a number of powerful jewels said to allow communion with the goddess Isha. It is said, at the beginning of time, when the first of the Eldar rose from the bosom of the ground nourished by Isha's tears, Asuryan the leader of the father of the Eldar not only gifted them wisdom but cursed them with a form of mortality. He decreed that the Eldar would live prodigiously long lives, but in the end would grow weary of the world and die. "Otherwise", said Asuryan wisely "they might begin to covet the thrones of the gods themselves." But the goddess Isha who loved her children above all others wept great tears of sorrow for their fate.

Vaul the Maker, the Eldar God of smiths, felt pity for Isha and her children and took her gleaming tears to his forge where he fashioned them into shining gems. Then with the blessing of Lileath, the Mistress of Magic who had gifted the eldar desire, he changed them so that Isha could watch and communicate with her children when they gazed upon the gems.

[Slightly non-canon, but GW has changed it like three times and you can still find 'canon' 40k quotes making reference to the legend that haven't explicitly been retconned] 

"So this is a telephone to Isha" said Adam nonchalantly unwrapping the rags in the chest.

'No ... I meaaannn, I guess yessss, but don't call it a telephone'.

'But it works like a telephone'.

"Now what do we have here" said Adam unfolding a neatly folded body suit of some kind it was clearly Eldar with a few wraith bone components but more than that he had no idea what it was. With it was a creepy horned mask and a strange jewelled belt.

Folding out the body suit further, he was met with one garish leg and arm in a faded pink and blue checkered pattern, like one a venetian clown might wear.

Behind you

A voice whispered.

'Hey Calcifer I know it's Halloween but this ruin is creepy enough'.

'I didn't say anything' said Calcifer.

Adam turned on himself in milliseconds ready to fight for his life.

Eeehehhe-hargghhahaha-mwhaha, a strange discordant laugh echoed around the chamber.

Adam saw nothing scanning back and forth.

"Show yourself" screamed out Adam his face snarling with aggression teeth elongating.

But no further reply came.

After a minute spent checking every corner of the room.

Adam returned to the chest quickly pulling the suit out to get out of the ruin before he heard any more creepy laughter.

A note he noticed, was hidden under the bodysuit.

It read: 'Your friend still lives ... but for how long, in the dark city, even the brightest of hearths go out, tic tok'.

Signed - C

'