Replacement Boy that Lived (Patreon)

If waking up in a fucking broom closest hadn't been enough to sell the fact that something was seriously wrong, having a whale of a human tell him to cook breakfast would have been more than enough. To say Myst was unhappy with the situation was an understatement, much like saying the ocean was wet or Death Valley was a bit warm. The only saving grace of the entire mess was the fact that he'd apparently acquired a floating Gamer interface in the process of getting dropped into Harry Potter's place in the world.

'Strength 5, Agility 10, Vitality 15 and Magic 50, slots for gear and two pages of inventory slots, could be worse,' Myst mused while he flipped the bacon he was cooking for the Dursleys. 'Could be better.' He glanced at the skill tab then tapped the dungeon tab next to it, curious what he had to work with. He wasn't sure what he was expecting but a three dimensional globe covered in colored dots wasn't it. 'So much for creating instant dungeons, probably just as well, this way I get to bounce around the world.'

He tapped the local tab and glanced over the map of Surrey, England. 'Huh, there's a low level dungeon in the park. Beats spending the day with the Dursleys.' He reached out and tapped the dungeon marker, wanting to see if it would give him more information. He stared at the popup asking if he wanted to fast travel to the Surrey Goblin Dungeon for a couple of seconds before he carefully pushed No. 'Now I just need some type of weapon.'

He tapped the skills tab and worked on flipping the bacon as he looked over his collection of combat skills. 'Great, one point in firearms and archery, at least I have a couple of points in blades and a decent amount in martial arts. Of course, that's probably less useful than it should be since I'm a kid.' He was slightly annoyed that he didn't start with any magic skills but not terribly surprised either considering the world he'd dropped into.

Myst glanced towards the hallway then quickly and quietly looked through the knife drawer, fairly sure none of the Dursleys would actually miss anything as long as he wasn't too obvious. He stashed a steak knife in his inventory then closed the drawer and turned off the pan when he heard footsteps coming his way. "Bacon is done."

He moved away from the stove as a long necked woman in her mid thirties with a pinched face walked into the kitchen looking annoyed. "Figured you'd want to know."

"Don't start your shit or you won't get anything to eat," Petunia snapped.

Myst sighed as he realized that he didn't have the patience to deal with the Dursleys without stabbing someone. "No problem," he lied as he turned and headed back to the living room, absently dodging out of Dudley's way when 'his' cousin tried to shoulder check him. 'Yeah, because that's original.'

He walked over to the cupboard under the stairs and opened the door, less than impressed with the cramped living space. 'It's just as well I can't remember growing up here.' He glanced over 'his' meager possessions then loaded his notebooks and school supplies into his inventory along with a blue knit hat that looked large enough to hide his scar. He glanced over at the doorbell when it rang.

"Get the door Boy!" Vernon called from the other room.

'Yeah, if I stay here, I'm going to stab them.' He reached out and touched the dungeon marker, hitting yes when it asked if he wanted to travel there.

"New skill acquired: Teleport." a female voice announced.

Myst grinned when he found himself in a small clearing in the middle of a patch of blackberries looking at a black hole in the ground. He turned to look at the person sized standing stone with glowing runes covering it. "Yeah, because that's not suspicious. Party invite Hermione Granger?" he asked hopefully.

"I'm sorry, no such person is present or on your friends list," the voice announced.

"Add Hermione Granger to my friend list," Myst ordered.

"I'm sorry, you can only add people to your friend's list in person," the voice said.

"Fair enough," Myst muttered as he pulled up his skill page and looked at his new skill. 'Huh, that's actually decently cheap even if I need to have line of sight or something to target like a dungeon marker.'

He opened his dungeon menu and rotated the globe so that he was looking at London. 'Yeah, I don't care if you have the bloody crown jewels, I'm not exploring a black ranked dungeon in the Tower of London without a hell of a lot more levels, screw that.'

He relaxed slightly when he noticed a dungeon in King's Cross Station that was listed as yellow. 'Ghost train? No thanks.' He shook his head when he found a moderately nasty dungeon in Knockturn Alley. 'London by Night, hags and goblins? Yeah, someone is trying to get me killed," he muttered as he checked the area for more dungeons, slightly annoyed that Diagon Alley didn't have its own dungeon. 'So much for making things easy.'

"Screw it, I'm never getting anywhere if I don't try." Myst took the stolen knife out of his inventory and jumped down the hole, figuring he could always teleport back out if he ran into trouble. It felt strange to go from falling to stepping into a dark tunnel but not unpleasant other than the fact that he could barely see a figure at the end of the tunnel thanks to the flickering light from a campfire somewhere below the exit. 'At least I don't have a negative stealth rating. What happens if it stabs me? I can teleport to the other dungeon then make a break for Diagon Alley, I have a decent amount of health, I should be able to drop at least one of them.''

Myst snuck towards the goblin as carefully as he could, then lunged the last couple of feet and started stabbing when the goblin spun around and screamed, "Intruder!" as he reached for his rusty sword.

Myst stepped in, grabbed the goblin's sword arm and stabbed the distracted goblin until he turned into dark blue motes of magical energy and vanished, leaving behind a rusty sword, a crappy belt/loin cloth and a skewered rat. He tossed the sword into his inventory then stepped forward and stared at the goblins charging up a ramp toward him. "Shit!" he cursed as he narrowly avoided a glowing ball of fire that flew out of the darkness on the other side of the chamber.

He focused on the other side of the pit and tapped his teleport skill icon then almost took a fireball to the face when he found himself right in front of a goblin with a stupid looking headdress and a twisted wooden staff. He grabbed the staff and stabbed the goblin in the side then felt a brief moment of soul crushing guilt that he'd stabbed his friend before he realized the goblin had tried to kill him and started slashing the goblin's arm with his knife, trying to get him to drop the staff.

The next couple of seconds few past in a blur, mostly because of the lightning the goblin unleashed into Myst with his free hand, thankfully for Myst's continued survival a quick jab to the throat stopped the goblin from casting another spell, followed by a knee to the crotch that dropped the goblin to his knees.

Myst wasted no time slipping around behind the goblin and cutting his throat, causing him to gurgle for a couple of seconds before turning into motes of magic and 'dropping' the staff, headdress, a silver skeleton key and a book. He glanced at his health, less than happy about the fact that he was down to a third of his health thanks to the lightning. "Fucking thing could have killed me," he muttered as he transfered the loot to his inventory.

He glanced down the tunnel towards where he could see a flickering candle flame coming from a side passage. 'Yeah, this can't end well.' He held his left hand right in front of the entry for his teleport skill then carefully walked down the side passage towards the flickering light, hoping there weren't any monsters.

Myst carefully peeked around the corner, looking into the dimly lit room that looked like a combination of an alchemy lab and crypt that made his cupboard look positively inviting. He glanced at the pirate style chest sitting 'innocently' against the wall on a raised platform. 'I should have grabbed Dudley for a meatshield,' he mused as he walked into the room, half expecting a trap.

Myst glanced at the floor then walked over and carefully picked up one of the vials filled with a suspicious goo from one of the makeshift workbenches. 'At least I can move the environment,' he mused as he stuck the suspicious goo into his inventory. He spent the next minute 'tossing' everything he could steal into his inventory, including half of the candles on the wall and the wooden parts of the makeshift workbenches then walked over to the chest.

He froze when he heard the faint sound of claws hitting stone in the hallway. 'Shit!' he cursed and quickly shoved the pirate chest into his inventory then hit the teleport icon and teleported out of the dungeon as a large group of goblins rushed into the chamber. He blinked a couple of times and tried to get his breathing under control as he waited for his eyes to adjust. 'I should have stolen the bacon or at least grabbed something from the fridge.'

Myst opened his inventory, pulled the book out and opened it before he could change his mind.

"New skill acquired: Alchemy." a female voice announced.

"Huh," Myst muttered when the book didn't vanish. 'At least Hermione won't throw a fit over the need to destroy a bunch of books,' he mused as he put the book back in his inventory. 'I should probably heal up or at least find a shield before I try to open the chest.'

Myst grinned when he tapped the little eye icon on the inventory slot the shaman's staff was in and a popup with a description appeared.

Shaman's staff of firebolt:

Requirements: Magic 1

Use: 1 mana

Allows the wielder to cast firebolt for one mana and teaches you the spell once you've cast it twenty times.

Myst glanced at his health and mana bars on his character sheet. 'One mana a shot, five hundred mana which means slightly more than five hundred shots depending on how my mana regeneration works.'

He tapped the eye on the slot the chest was in, hoping he'd get a better idea of what he was dealing with.

Wooden Pirate Chest:

Locked: Yes

Trapped: Unknown

"Where's Fred and George when you need them," Myst muttered as he tapped his teleport icon and selected the Knockturn Alley option, figuring it would toss up a message about how he hadn't been there yet. He blinked when he found himself in a creepy alley, next to a stone pillar and a shop with boarded up windows. 'Huh, okay, that's more useful than I was expecting.'

He glanced around at the mostly empty alley then headed for the entrance to Diagon Alley at a quick walk, ready to turn it into a sprint if the old man smoking in front of one of the creepy looking shops pulled his wand or started screaming or doing anything weird. Thankfully, the old man merely glanced his way before going back to making smoke rings.

'At least it's not a combat zone,' he mused as he left the alley and glanced at the various colorfully dressed witches and wizards wandering around.

"Did you see the prices on those scales? The ministry is nuts, not sure where those cursed items are coming," Myst listened to the crowd as they wandered past, the voices blurring together and giving him further proof that he probably wasn't stuck in a video game, just a version of Harry Potter where someone gave him a knock off gamer power as everyone was rather life like and wasn't sticking around for a full conversation. He ran his fingers over the stone wall. 'If it's a game, I can't tell the difference.'

"Are you lost?" a blonde teenager asked, noticing the way the kid was looking around and the way he was dressed.

Myst turned to look at the girl wearing black robes, frowning slightly when he had to look up, something that he wasn't used to doing. "A little bit, I'm trying to figure out which shop would buy a rusty pirate sword."

"You could try the junk shop on the southside," the girl replied as she pointed across the street and down the way. "They buy weird things."

"Thanks," Myst replied as he turned and started walking in the direction she'd pointed.

"No problem," the girl replied with a smile then continued walking towards the bookshop, happy she could help.

Myst couldn't help the smile on his face as he dodged around or slipped between people as he made his way to the junk shop, feeling a bit like he was at a ren faire or a rather large costume party as most of the crowd was wearing old fashioned clothes or at least cloaks over their more normal looking clothes. 'Cauldrons, tea, second hand books, Junk Shop.'

Myst followed a pudgy teenager into the junk shop and glanced around the shelves filled with strange odds and ends that made him wonder if the shopkeeper was just using the shop as a front. He walked over to the counter where a middle aged wizard was standing behind the counter. "Do you buy pirate swords?"

"That depends, is it an authentic pirate sword?" the man behind the counter asked with amusement, figuring the kid was joking.

Myst pulled the rusty cutlass out of his inventory and set it on the counter. "I'd like to say I took it from the cold dead hands of a goblin shaman but my mum said I wasn't supposed to make up stories."

The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow at the kid's surprising display of wandless magic. "Goblin shaman?"

Myst tapped the eye icon next to the shaman's headdress.

Shaman Headdress:

While Equipped: +2 magic

'Huh, so much for selling the headdress.' Myst shrugged. "Like I said, I'm not supposed to lie. Either way, it's mine, do you want to buy it?"

"Five sickles?" the shopkeeper offered.

Myst sighed. "That's highway robbery."

The man shrugged. "It's rusty."

"It's a period appropriate sword, it just needs a bit of polishing which you can do with a wave of your wand," Myst argued.

"Nine sickles," the man offered.

"Fifteen in trade?" Myst countered, annoyed that the man was ripping him off but fairly sure he could always get more loot.

"Deal," he replied with a smirk as he took the sword.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Myst lied as he walked over to the shelves filled with old or worn books, picked one of them up and opened it. 'So much for learning everything instantly like a gamer,' he mused when nothing happened.

He carefully flipped through the pages, noticing that it looked like a spellbook or at least like he'd expect of a spellbook in Harry's world. 'It's filled with descriptions of wand movements, incantations and stupid stories about miscast spells that don't actually help.'

He put the random book back then grabbed a copy of the first year spells and opened it. 'Yeah, I might need a dungeon book or maybe it only works with skills,' he mused as he set the book on the counter. "Do you have any brooms I can afford?" he asked, expecting him to laugh.

The shopkeeper glanced at the first year book then reached behind him and grabbed an old broom and set it on the counter. "A couple of NEWT students charmed it a few years ago, it works but it's more than a little temperamental and it feels like you're sitting on a pole because they couldn't get the cushioning charms to work. It's just taking up space, so you're welcome to have it for the rest of your credit."

"Deal," Myst replied quickly as he picked up his purchases and stuck them in his inventory.

"That's a nice trick, how's it work?" the shopkeeper asked, hoping he could duplicate his trick.

"Magic," Myst replied with amusement. "Speaking of magic, are you any good at detecting curses?"

"I'd be dead if I wasn't, why?" the shopkeeper asked.

"I might have a pirate chest that I need checked for traps and curses," Myst replied with a grin.

The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow. "You have an authentic pirate chest?"

Myst leaned down and pulled the chest out of his inventory. "Unofficially, sure. Officially, I have a chest that I need checked for traps by a professional."

The shopkeeper drew his wand as he walked around the counter. "Hmm, I'll admit to some curiosity." He waved his wand at the chest. "Alohomora." He frowned when the chest refused to open. "Curious and curiouser," he mused, quickly casting a number of detection spells, followed by several rather complicated spells that should unlock just about anything. "It's not trapped but it's warded against unlocking it with magic."

Myst grinned when he realized he might have a way to get back at the man for short changing him on the sword. "Do you have a pair of lockpicks? I bet I can open it."

The shopkeeper laughed as he pulled a pair of wires out from under the counter, knowing the chest was also warded against lockpicks. "How much do you want for the chest?"

Myst pretended to consider the question for a couple of seconds. "The chest or the chest and everything inside of it?"

"I'm more interested in the chest, let's say one hundred galleons and I'll give you twenty minutes to unlock the chest and clear everything out or the contents are mine," the shopkeeper offered, knowing the chest was worth at least a couple of hundred galleons to the right buyer, possibly even five or six hundred if he could figure out how to get it open without breaking it, not that he thought breaking the heavily warded chest was likely.

"Deal," Myst replied as he held out his hand for the wires.

The shopkeeper smirked as he handed Myst the wires then grabbed a twenty minute 'hourglass' from under the counter, flipped it over and set it on the table. "Go for it."

Myst knelt down and got to work. "This shouldn't take long."

"If you say so," the shopkeeper replied with amusement as he opened the safe under the counter and started counting out coins after glancing towards the large pudgy kid that was shaking a snow globe a bit too hard. 'You're going to get yourself in trouble one of these days.'

Myst spent a minute and a half trying to pick up a lockpicking skill with the wires while the shopkeeper counted out coins before he called it quits, pulled the silver key out of his inventory, stuck it in the lock and turned it.

The shopkeeper looked up when he heard the chest open. "That shouldn't be possible."

"What did you expect, I'm a wizard," Myst replied as he quickly emptied the contents of the chest into his inventory, rather happy with his haul of two books, a pair of soft black leather boots and a bag of coins.

The shopkeeper sighed when the kid locked the chest and pocketed a silver key. "Let me guess, the key is extra?"

"You give me eleven sickles for a pirate sword," Myst replied as he stood up and dusted his pants off, mostly by habit as his pants needed to be burned. "What do you think?"

"Makes sense. How much for the key?" the shopkeeper asked as he walked over and handed Myst the bag of coins.

Myst dropped the bag of galleons into his inventory's cash box and grinned when it changed to two hundred galleons and an empty expanded bag appeared in his inventory. 'Huh, he actually didn't try to cheat me.' He pulled the key out of his pocket and tossed it to the shopkeeper. "Eh, on second thought, there's no point in getting greedy."

"Much appreciated," the shopkeeper said as he pocketed the key that would save him a lot of effort. "Are you going to tell me what was in the chest?"

"Maybe next time," Myst replied as he headed for the door, walking around the pudgy kid that had swapped to poking at a turtle shell on a shelf.

'In other words, not a chance,' the shopkeeper mused as he walked over to grab the chest, not particularly surprised when he found it too heavy to move. "How do…" he trailed off when he looked up and realized the kid was already gone. 'Yeah, that was suspiciously good timing.'

Myst smiled as he headed towards the bookstore to pick up his school supplies, figuring it shouldn't be hard to just ask the clerk for the first year books.

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