Harry Potter and the Magic of Books Part 8 (Patreon)

Sarah asked once they were outside, “So, what’s the plan if we can’t cut or blast our way into the temple?”

“If we can’t just fly up and cut our way into the temple then we leave and jump into a Dungeons and Dragons world and go to a proper temple where they’re not going to send us on a damned quest for something as minor as curing a partial possession.”

Sarah asked, “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

Harry sighed. “I’m ten, almost eleven, Hermione is eleven, this is a temple that has eaten entire adventuring parties, the only real advantage we have is the fact that we’ve got some magical items and spells from other worlds. It would be one thing if we had a couple of years of magic school under our belts but we haven’t even completed our first year of magic training yet. As much as exploring the temple sounds interesting, I’m not sure it’s worth the risk.”

Hermione said, “As long as Sarah can cloak us, flying out to the temple shouldn’t be too dangerous, right?”

“The guidebook mentioned some rather fearsome birds, but as far as I know they can’t detect invisible creatures.”

Hermione smiled at Harry. “In that case we should be okay, you’ve got the red ring and I’ve got the blue ring which is almost as good. Compared to killing several of the bosses in Zelda sneaking into the vault and reclaiming the chalice shouldn’t be as much of a problem.”

“Fine, I still think this is a bad idea.” Harry frowned slightly as he looked at the map and compared it with what he remembered.

“If it looks too dangerous, you can always pull us out of the book and we’ll try to find another cure.” Sarah waved her hands over the group. “Okay, that should let us get to the temple without being noticed.”

Hermione asked, “How safe is the forest?”

Harry shook his head. “There are several spots along the path that the ‘heroes’ are supposed to get ambushed on the adventure.”

“But we’re flying over the forest, right?” Hermione asked.

“We are but one of the groups has a magical comb that I want.”

“Why do you want a magical comb, well other than your wild hair?” Hermione asked curiously.

Harry stuck his tongue out at Hermione. “You’ve got no room to talk but yeah that’s exactly why I want it, it’s supposed to be able to tame a person’s hair as well as magically color it.”

“That is worth it,” the bushy haired girl agreed.

“How many thugs do we have to defeat?” Sarah asked as she scanned the street for problems.

Harry smirked. “That’s the best part, we don’t. The comb should be in the leader’s tent. I should be able to sneak in, grab the comb, and sneak out.”

Hermione smiled as she thought about borrowing Harry’s comb to use on her hair. “I’m not in a hurry, if nothing else we can always take the book home with us and come back here later tonight.”

“Let’s go.” Harry reached out and took Hermione and Sarah’s hands then flew toward the bandit camp.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Harry blinked as he looked at the wiggling squishy translucent pink handle of the hairbrush that looked suspiciously like a dildo. ‘I don’t care if it’s a damned staff of power, Hermione can have it.’ He picked it up by the bristles and carefully dropped it in his backpack before shaking out the bag where he’d found the hairbrush. He picked up the five gold coins that tumbled out then snuck out of the tent past the bored looking guard that was picking his nose.

Harry glanced at the large chest in the center of the bandit camp. He glanced over at where most of the bandits were sitting around a fire having lunch. He knew the key for the chest was on the bandit chief or at least he was assuming the key the chief wore around her neck between her large cantaloupe sized breasts was the key to the chest. ‘Even with guards and a lock, no one is stupid enough to not trap a chest in the middle of a group of thieves. I’d better leave it.’

He’d taken a couple of steps toward the edge of the clearing when he realized that he had a better idea than leaving the chest for later. He smirked as he floated a couple of inches off the ground then floated over the dried leaves scattered around the chest.

He looked into the chest using his X-ray glasses. ‘A strange leather collar, two ‘Healing’ potions or at least two potions with Healing written on them and several bags of gold and silver. They’ll probably break, then again they’re probably poisoned or the reverse of healing potions.’

Harry looked over the sturdy looking ironbound chest with a large durable looking padlock. ‘At least it gives me a place to attach the rope.’ He carefully pulled a rope out of his backpack then carefully threaded it through the lock without touching the metal with his gloves just in case it was cursed or magically trapped. He tied the rope around the padlock. ‘Okay, suckers, let’s play.’ He got a firm grip on the rope with his gloves then shot into the air.

Several thugs shouted, “Hey!” as the chest flew through the air.

Harry ignored the shouting as he flew up and away from the temple until he reached the small clearing that he’d passed earlier. “Bombs away.” He snickered as he dropped the rope. The chest fell the hundred and some feet and shattered when it hit the ground. “What? No fireball, no explosion of acid or smoke… no magically conjured darts of doom? What the fuck is wrong with these thieves?”

He sighed as he flew down to inspect the loot that was mostly contained in the broken chest. “Hmm, I guess they wanted to be able to store their stuff without worrying about traps, weird.” He frowned slightly at the broken vials. “Ah, well they were probably poison anyways.”  He carefully picked up the collar and almost dropped it when he felt a pleasant tingle of magic coming from the silver cat buckle. “Okay, note to self, pick up a book on identifying magical items.” He placed the collar in his backpack then shoved the three bags of gold and silver into his backpack. He collected his rope and put it away then flew back toward the forest temple to meet up with the girls.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Hermione scowled as her stone cutting spell fizzled against the stone that made up the temple’s wall. “What’s the point of having a stone cutting spell when everything is protected against it?”

Sarah snickered. “If it was that easy, then someone would have looted the vault years ago.”

“Okay, I’m not going to try to sneak through all one hundred levels of a perverted nightmarish death trap.”

“Don’t worry, I found an air vent about twenty feet down on the other side of the temple.”

Hermione glared at Sarah. “You couldn’t have told me that before I wasted all of this time trying to melt stone that was obviously protected by magic.”

“You were so enthusiastic and it you got plenty of practice with the spell, that counts for something, right?”

Whatever curse or complaint Hermione was going to say was interrupted by Harry’s arrival.

Sarah said, “Welcome to the party.”

Harry looked at the temple then back at the girls floating next to it. “I thought you were going to cut a hole in the wall?”

Hermione huffed. “That was the plan but the walls have been protected.”

Sarah said, “Don’t worry, I found an air vent that we should be able to use to skip most of the dungeon.”

“Most?” Harry asked dubiously.

“It’s like twenty feet down on the other side of the temple, I’m sure if I had a pair of X-ray vision glasses, I could tell you more, but I don’t.” Sarah stuck her tongue out at Harry.

“Is this your way of telling me that you want X-ray vision glasses?”

“Yes, was I not blatant enough?” Sarah smirked.

Harry turned his attention to the walls. “Okay, well… shit, any ideas how we’re supposed to kill a greater demon?”

Hermione shook her head. “Care of magical creatures isn’t until 3rd year and I’m fairly sure that they don’t cover greater demons for at least a couple of years, if ever.”

Sarah said, “If I have to fight a greater demon, I’m going to require a medic.”

Harry floated to the left looking at the rooms that they were going to have to go through in order to get to the vault. “Okay, I think this should be possible but we might have to use some creative trap breaking methods.”

“You have creative trap breaking methods?” Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow as she followed Harry around the temple.

“No but I have Zelda style bombs.”

“Bombs!” Sarah giggled as she flew after Harry and Hermione.

Hermione frowned slightly. “How many of those do you have left?”

“Enough, though I’m going to want to set up a lab where I can make more,” Harry replied cheerfully.

“How’d you learn to make them?” Hermione asked curiously. “I thought you had to buy them at the store.”

“The storekeeper’s daughter, wife, and maid all had a third of the recipe and as for how I got it from them…” he trailed off with a grin.

Hermione blushed and decided to change the subject. “Yeah, we should probably keep that type of lab in a book.” She doubted that her parents would let her set up a full bomb lab in the house.

Harry frowned slightly as he spotted the rather small air vent. “I thought you said you knew of a way in.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You’re a shape changer Harry, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“Oh, right…” Harry glanced at the dark hole in the temple with his X-ray vision. “You’re going to have to go first and cut some of the grates blocking the vent.”

“Okay, I’ll take care of the vents, is there anything I need to worry about the room where we’re exiting?”

“No, you should be good.”

Sarah landed on the hole then crawled into the vent.

Hermione asked, “What type of animal are you going to turn into?”

“I was thinking about a bat for the first bit then probably a rat or something maybe a snake, I’m not sure.” Harry grumbled as he looked at the vent they were going to use to get into the temple.

“Just as long as you don’t try to eat me.”

“That’s not what you said the other night,” Harry replied with a smirk.

Hermione blushed. “That’s not the same thing and you know it.”

Sarah called out, “All clear!”

Harry lunged at the opening and changed into a bat. Sadly, his ability to fly went from the ability to hover to retarded flying monkey levels of skill which didn’t include hovering and was barely enough to make it into the vent. He flopped ungainly a couple of times as he tried to claw his way into the vent far enough he could change into something more suited for exploring the dark vent. He changed into a snake and after a couple of seconds figured out how to slither down the vent.

Hermione flew over to the opening and put her hands on the vent, sort of flew toward the hole then changed into a kitten and scrambled/pulled herself up into the ‘tunnel’.

Sarah snickered slightly as a snake with a lightning bolt scar peeked out of the vent. “You should work on flying in alternate forms.”

Harry hissed at her then slithered out of the vent trying to press against part of the wall so that he could lower himself down.

Sarah laughed when Harry was shoved out of the vent by an adorable orange kitten. “We’re going to have to work on your various forms.”

Harry changed back to his human form. “If someone hadn’t gotten impatient, I would have been okay.”

Hermione pouted at Harry.

Harry shook his head. “Don’t give me that innocent look, you’re a demon cat and you know it.”

Sarah changed back to her human size and picked Hermione up out of the vent. “Aw, she’s cute.”

Hermione playfully wiggled against Sarah’s hand.

Sarah set Hermione on the ground. “Here.”

Hermione changed back to her human form. “You were taking too long.”

Sarah gestured toward the door. “Any suggestions on how to deal with this place?”

“Yes, I’ll look through each door and wall and we try to avoid all of the crazy tentacle monsters, sex demons and traps. I have a feeling we’ll also be blowing holes in some of the walls to avoid certain sections of the temple.”

Hermione grumbled, “As long as they aren’t protected. We’d better get a decent reward for this.”

Harry laughed. “If we get the same reward the players were supposed to get, I’ll be happy.”

“What were they supposed to get?”

“A permanent boost to charisma and appearance,” Harry replied.

“That could be fun.” Sarah drew her sword. “Just tell me what you want me to attack.”

Harry opened the door carefully after checking it with his glasses. “I’ll be right back.” He turned invisible then snuck down the hallway. He looked around the large chamber and frowned as he saw a large demon standing next to a pit. The large demonic humanoid had a horse sized barbed cock that looked extremely unpleasant. ‘That needs to die.’ He frowned as he noticed that the walls were covered in tentacles and that there were skeletons near the walls. He smiled slightly as he used his glasses to look into the pit and realized the pit was filled with tentacle monsters, mammoth ones. ‘Okay, that might be workable. I’ve probably got one shot before he realizes I’m here.’

Harry adjusted his power bracelet then snuck over and upcut the demon in the nuts.

The demon shrieked like a stuck pig and sorted of folded up as he fell backwards into the pit of tentacle monsters. Harry jumped back as the demon started screaming horribly and loudly. “Okay, that worked better than I thought… and yeah I’m not going near that shit.”

Harry walked back to where Hermione and Sarah were waiting. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.”

“What was the screaming?” Sarah asked curiously.

“A demon sort of fell into one of the traps, this place is evil.”

“What do you mean sort of?”

“I might have pushed him into a pit filled with tentacle monsters.”

“That doesn’t sound like he’s having a good time…” she trailed off as the screaming cut off rather abruptly.

“I should probably make sure he didn’t manage to get out.”

Sarah spoke up, “Be careful.”

“I will. I’ll be back in five minutes. If you hear explosions, I’m probably just blowing up walls.”

Hermione grumbled, “Remind me to buy a ring of invisibility with the loot we get from the vault.”

“Sure. Be back in a few.” He headed back into the chamber with the tentacle pit. He briefly considered using his X-ray vision on the pit to check on the demon then heard sounds of movement in the pit as well as muffled screams. ‘On second thought, hell no, I don’t need the nightmares.’ He carefully avoided the pit then scanned the sides of the room with his X-ray vision. ‘Okay, that looks suspiciously like a secret passage.’ He conjured his mage hand on the other side of the wall and used it to pull the release lever that he could see using his glasses. He smirked as a section of the wall opened. He snuck into the dark hallway and frowned slightly as he noticed a few holes that let in light at about head level on an adult.

He floated up and glanced into the holes of light and realized that he was looking into a chamber filled with a mostly translucent purple mist. Chained to the large bed was a skinny lust crazed dark elf man that several rather attractive girls were playing with. He didn’t really understand why several of the demon girls were playing with a knife on his flesh while another was dripping hot wax on him but he seemed to enjoy the blowjob the naked demon girl between his legs was giving him enough to ignore the other stuff, either that or he was drugged out of his mind which probably meant that the purple mist was to be avoided unless he wanted to die in a lust filled nightmare of pleasure and pain as several demon girls feasted on his lifeforce.

Harry shook his head then floated over to the second set of peepholes and saw a demoness playing with another demoness on something that looked suspiciously like a rack. He shivered then moved to the next set of peepholes where a demoness was drawing glowing runes on a piece of pale leather. He smiled slightly when he noticed a large leather bound book on the table. ‘Okay, that could be useful.’ He glanced over at the door and noticed several runes on the door preventing uninvited entrance into the demon’s room. ‘I don’t remember this part in the sourcebook but I wasn’t able to read all of it.’

Harry glanced at the end of the passageway at the lever then used his X-ray glasses to look into the hallway that butted against a set of stairs leading up. ‘Okay, that was a lucky find.’ He followed the hallway with his gaze and noticed several pressure plates in the floor that obviously did something suitably horrific, most likely something related to a vat of chemicals in the ceiling. He jumped back as he saw a large mass of flesh that was like a thousand breasts sewn together into a large pillowy ball of death roll down the hallway pouring forth some whitish material from its many nipples that spread over the floors and produced steam or in the case of a rat caused the rat’s fur to melt off. ‘What the hell?’

Harry carefully backed away even though the thing was still on the other side of a wall from him. He turned and headed back to where Hermione and Sarah were. ‘This place is crazy.’