Replacement Boy That Lived Part 9 (Patreon)

"Are we going to help?" Hermione asked as she scanned the well maintained green that reminded her more of a golf course on a sunny day than a battle site where a small army of brightly painted mechanical garden gnomes with miniature cattle prods were fighting against a large army of one foot tall naked humanoids with almost comically large heads for the size of their bodies and tiny knives.

"The animated toys seem to have it under control," Neville said thoughtfully, not seeing a reason to help the pests that loved to damage his gardens and nibble on things they didn't even finish eating. 'These look a bit more humanoid, the other ones are more like potatoes that grew legs and arms.'

"They're slaughtering them!" Hermione complained, not sure how everyone was so calm about the whole situation; they'd stepped into another reality, were witnessing the strangest battle she could even conceive of, and they weren't freaking out at all.

"More like stunning," Scarlet said as she watched the garden gnomes in the back of the group start tying up the gnomes that had fallen unconscious thanks to getting shocked.

Myst frowned as he studied the mechanical gnomes, wondering how dangerous their cattle prods would be to a human. "Even if we ignore the gnomes screaming 'Blood for the elf god!' and the fact that they're dungeon monsters, gnomes are somewhere between potatoes and parrots for intelligence."

"Which means we're supposed to let them get slaughtered?" Hermione asked before she remembered what they'd said about dungeon monsters and how they weren’t real, more like concepts or ideas given flesh for a short time.

Neville pointed the poison bubble staff at the gnomes, wanting to learn the new spell. "They're magical vermin; they turn up in magical gardens and dig through the roots and destroy everything they can, not even eating most of it!" he complained, getting worked up.

"Blood for the elf god!" a pack of the gnomes shouted as they went into a frenzy and swarmed one of the mechanical gnomes, stabbing it repeatedly and ignoring the rest of the mechanical gnomes that were trying to zap them.

"Go for the eyes!" one of the gnomes shouted, his voice high pitched and squeaky.

Neville shifted uncomfortably as he thought about the little buggers swarming him and carving out his eyes. "That's new."

Hermione raised her staff and shot a crazed gnome with a firebolt when it turned to run at them, turning it into a crispy fried gnome before it vanished leaving a leather bound tome that was far larger than its small form. "It dropped a book…"

"It's a thing," Myst replied then paused as Hermione started shooting fireballs like a Diablo character with mana to burn, fairly sure that any hope the gnomes had had for getting rescued had just died with the revelation that they dropped books.

"Blood for the elf god!" half the gnomes shouted as they turned and rushed towards Myst's group.

"Open fire!" Scarlet shouted as she raised her hand and started tossing firebolts at the demented creatures that were charging down the path towards them.

Myst joined the rest of the group in blasting the gnomes, figuring he'd toss up a wall of fire if they got past the halfway point.

'Less messy than using a Jarvey,' Neville mused as one of his poison bubbles flowed over a group of gnomes, leaving them dead in two steps. 'You could kill a wizard with that!' He took a breath and tried and mostly failed to sound casual. "What are we going to do about the mechanical gnomes?"

"No idea," Myst admitted as he continued tossing firebolts at the nimble gnomes, only hitting with two out of every three spells because someone else's spell had blown them up first or one of the clumsy buggers would stumble in the way. The rest of the group were also tossing firebolts at the gnomes with wild abandon, making him glad that they'd started in a decently safe dungeon where everyone could practice to their little pyromaniac's heart’s content.

‘Maybe the spell is causing it?’ he ideally thought to himself before blowing up another trio of gnomes and dismissing the idea, as this was more fun than the fourth of July and he didn’t need any magical influences to make him enjoy it.

Hermione frowned as one of Neville's bubbles killed the last of the gnomes that had charged her, giving her a reason to stop tossing fireballs everywhere. "Isn't using poison against the rules?"

"Rules?" Neville glanced at Hermione. "There aren’t any rules in a dungeon."

Myst shook his head. "I'm pretty sure the wizarding world never signed the Geneva Convention."

Hermione looked at Myst. "The convention deals with prisoners, you're thinking of the Geneva Protocols that deal with chemical warfare."

"Fair enough," Myst admitted as he watched the purple mist caused by Neville’s spell disperse. "Same problem, different rules."

"Is that a muggle thing?" Neville asked, not sure what they were talking about.

"No clue," Scarlet admitted. “What’s a muggle?”

“Someone with no magic,” he replied.

"Where I’m from the only person I know that used magic growing up was my aunt," Scarlet replied with a shrug. “Not sure if the rest didn’t have magic or just didn’t have so much that they had to get used to using it like she did.”

“Oh,” Neville said thoughtfully. “Well, muggles are people who have no magic, we’ve checked, and they seem to have gone a bit weird because of it.”

“A bit weird?” Scarlet asked.

“Yeah,” Neville agreed. “Have you seen the muggle world? It’s noisy, dangerous, smells funny, and most people seem to be in a rush, snubbing everyone around them. Hearing that they have rules about fighting for your life really doesn’t surprise me.”

Hermione stared at Neville, trying to wrap her head around his viewpoint and wondering if it was a common magical opinion or just his own. "They were agreements between a number of large nations about the nature of weapons that could be used in war, didn't you study history?"

"The wizarding world generally focuses on different things," Myst said as he floated one of the silver kitchen knives the gnomes had dropped over to his hand. 'Did we even study the convention until middle school or was that high school?'

"History isn't my favorite subject," Neville admitted as Scarlet walked over and picked up a knife. "I read about the war with Grindelwald and I'm sort of familiar with the important bits of the history of the wizarding world."

"Grindelwald?" Hermione asked, glancing between Myst and Neville as she floated one of the books over to her hand, using her new telekinesis spell because it was awesome and no one was around to give her funny looks or warn her about the neighbors seeing.

"The wizarding world has its share of lunatics, he's a dark wizard that helped the Nazis in the war. He's currently locked up in Nurmengard Castle somewhere in the Austrian Alps," Myst explained as he picked up the random bits of silverware, shiny rocks and potted plants that the gnomes dropped and stuck everything in his inventory as they made their way towards the other two books that dropped.

"He's still alive?" Hermione asked in surprise.

"It's not uncommon for wizards to live more than a hundred years unless something kills them or they get cursed," Neville offered. "Barry Winkle is over seven hundred and fifty years old and the headmaster before Professor Dumbledore is over three hundred. The Flammels are over six hundred, but I'm reasonably sure that's because of their Philosopher's stone."

"Any idea how Barry Winkle managed to live seven hundred years?" Myst asked, curious about the man he'd never heard of or at least couldn't remember hearing of.

Hermione opened the leather bound tome, picking up a cooking skill and some cooking recipes and a couple of alchemy recipes involving potatoes.

Neville shook his head. "There are stories and rumors but no one has ever found proof or if they have they didn't share."

"Philosopher stones are real?" Scarlet asked thoughtfully, thinking about the fact that her mother was getting older while her aunt looked the same as she always had.

"Supposedly," Neville replied. "Nicholas Flammel is supposed to be old and frail, so I'm not sure how well it works."

"Unless he was already old to start with," Scarlet suggested.

"It's something to look into," Myst mused as he reached down and picked up one of the books the gnomes had dropped when they'd died. He stuck the book into his inventory and stared at the description. 'Cooking with Potatoes and Other Uses for Spuds.'

"Something weird?" Scarlet asked when she noticed the bemused look on his face.

"Not really, it's just a weird collection," Myst replied as he pulled the book out of his inventory and opened it, learning a cooking skill and adding to his alchemy recipes. "It teaches a cooking skill and gives you a dozen potato recipes and adds a handful of alchemy recipes, mostly potato based alcohols and explosives."

"Can I see that, I might have picked up a copy," Hermione said as she stuck the book in her inventory to read later.

"Explosives," Scarlet mused, her lips twisting into a smile.

Myst handed the book to Hermione when she walked over then pulled up his alchemy list and looked at the ingredients. "We can get all of these at a grocery store."

Hermione opened the book, then handed it to Neville and looked at her available recipes. "Yeah, it's the same. It wouldn't even be that hard, not sure what we'd do with the alcohol though."

"You could always set it on fire," Scarlet suggested, not a fan of the taste from the time one of her older sisters had spiked her juice as a prank.

"Or try to get skill points for concentrating it," Myst suggested as he started walking towards the other book now that the mechanical gnomes were heading back towards their tower with the unconscious gnomes they'd captured. "If we have time when we're done, we should grab some supplies and make some of the first year potions so we get some experience before we have to put up with Snape."

Hermione turned to look at Myst. "Put up with?"

"Just because you know your subject doesn't mean you know how to teach or care about teaching a bunch of children that you don't like," Myst pointed out, hoping this version of Snape wasn't actually working for Voldemort.

"He's supposed to hate Gryffindors," Neville admitted.

"Why?" Hermione asked.

"Probably because a gryffindor 'stole' the girl he was obsessed with in school and he blamed my father rather than the fact that he was hanging out with a bunch of bigots that wanted to rule the world," Myst explained as he finished walking over to the other book the gnomes had dropped.

"He was obsessed with your mother?" Scarlet asked.

"They grew up in the same town," Myst explained as he picked up the book and stuck it in his inventory so he could examine it. 'Garden gnome to gnome transmutation, weird.'

"He can’t be that bad or how is he still a teacher?" Scarlet asked.

"No idea, magical contracts to make sure the teachers act appropriately?" Myst pulled the book out of his inventory and opened it, picking up the new spell. "Hopefully, I'm just worried for nothing and he’s not as bad I fear. Who knows, maybe he is a reasonable adult who does his job correctly."

"What happens if he doesn't?" Scarlet asked.

'That depends on which version we get,' Myst mused as he handed Hermione the gnome book. "If he's a horrible teacher, I'll just skip class and if they make a fuss I’ll switch to another school and tell the paper exactly why I'm leaving."

"And that would help?" Hermione asked.

"No idea," Myst admitted, not sure how this world's version of Dumbledore would react. "I doubt Snape wants people digging into his past so there's a chance that he'd behave. Either way, the spell should give us runes for garden gnomes and gnomes which means we can mix and match with the rest of our runes if we practice enough."

"Like turning them into pudding?" Neville asked thoughtfully.

"Something like that," Myst replied as he headed towards the tower with the lightning rods, more interested in seeing if he could turn the gnomes into silver or gold. "Let's see if we can find more books."

"Books would be good," Hermione agreed as she followed Myst, wondering if you could opt out of a class because of a conflict of interest. "We can probably look it up in the library when we get there."

"It's worth a shot," Myst replied, fairly sure it wouldn't be that easy but willing to try being polite before he resorted to using secrets to get people to behave like reasonable people. 'I need to pick up better mental protection if I don't want to get caught. One problem at a time, deal with getting everyone checked out on combat magic and rack up some experience then we'll worry about getting Scarlet's magic up to something reasonable.'

Myst was a touch surprised when the door to the tower opened and a blonde haired woman in her early twenties walked out wearing an odd collection of old fashioned clothes and steampunk gear. He pulled his attention off her generous bust and checked her clothes a second time, noting the ruffled red dress, black leather pirate boots, a gold chain connecting her dark leather corset to a metal skull on her left shoulder, the slightly off kilter top hat on her head with the metal goggles covering her eyes that had extra lenses on flexible metal limbs that were probably for detail work. "Hello?"

"Greetings and salutations!" the woman called out cheerfully. "You're here about the ad requesting test subjects, right?"

"What type of test subjects do you need?" Myst asked warily as they walked over so they didn't have to shout, ready to start tossing spells if she attacked them.

"Gnomes! I have to replenish my lost minions of doom!" the woman announced as if she was the announcer of a circus or a stage production.

"Minions of doom?" Hermione asked warily.

"Of course! I turn the gnomes into garden gnomes then I cut them apart and turn them into robotic minions, it's the only way to be sure of their loyalty," the woman replied with a mad gleam in her eyes.

Hermione stared at the crazy women, not even sure where to start on her insane plan.

"How much are you paying?" Scarlet asked, figuring they might as well check.

"They have a point, we can't just let them do the job for free," the woman mused then laughed and continued speaking in a deeper tone of voice, "Of course we can." She shook her head. "No, you remember what happened the last time, mistakes were made." The woman sighed then conjured a book. "I'll share one of my secrets, I can turn gnomes into chocolate!"

"Chocolate?" Scarlet asked, sounding hopeful but not quite sure of the woman's sanity.

"White chocolate, milk chocolate," the woman giggled, "dark chocolate," the woman promised, her voice dropping low and seductive. "You just have to agree to bring me twenty gnomes and I'll give you the book."

'I guess we can just leave after taking the book,' Hermione told herself.

"Sure," Myst replied, not seeing a problem with capturing some gnomes in exchange for another magic book. "What can you tell me about the other tower?"

"I don't know the demon's name," the woman admitted with annoyance and a scowl. "I just know that he's a twisted elf that wants to rule the valley and turn my creations back into gnomes!"

"The nerve! Don't worry about it, we'll take care of it," Scarlet promised as she held her hand out for the book, fairly sure the woman was nuts, but drawn in by the promise of chocolate.

"Excellent!" the woman replied as she handed Scarlet the book.

"Always a pleasure," Myst lied as he turned and started walking towards the other tower, wanting to leave before the woman changed her mind.

Scarlet stuck the book in her inventory and followed Myst, checking the book as they walked back up the path. 'Better than I was expecting,' she mused as she pulled it out and opened it.

"Are we really going to help her?" Hermione asked in a whisper once they were out of easy hearing distance.

"They're pests and dungeon monsters, I'm not sure they're real and she might give us a quest to deal with the elf," Myst pointed out. “Quests can provide some impressive rewards.”

"You're assuming the elf doesn't have a reason for what they're doing," Hermione argued.

"Considering they were shouting about blood for the elf god, I'm a bit suspicious but I'm willing to play it by ear," Myst assured her then turned to look at Scarlet when she handed him the book. "What did you get?"

"It gave me some recipes for fudge in addition to a spell to change gnomes into chocolate," Scarlet replied with a grin. "I'm going to want to study it when I get a chance to sit down and read."

"Sure," Myst replied as he opened the book, grinning when he got a spell to transmute gnomes into chocolate. "I'd almost feel guilty if I wasn't in a dungeon but we should be able to use the spell on other things once we figure out the rune for chocolate."

"Hopefully," Hermione said, making a mental note to look up spells for cleaning your teeth and about the nature of dungeons to make sure her new friends weren't mistaken about the nature of the creatures inside.

"Do we have a plan for dealing with the gnomes or the elf?" Neville asked warily, thinking about how dangerous pissed off house elves could be.

Myst gestured towards the normal looking stone tower surrounded by a hedge maze. "I'm sort of hoping we can avoid the elf by not going into the tower. We have spells to transmute gnomes into garden gnomes or chocolate, we have a spell to transmute garden gnomes into gnomes, none of those require us touching them."

"Which means we should be able to stay out of the hedge and hit everything that comes out," Scarlet mused, relieved that they might be able to thin the army of gnomes before they stepped into the maze.

"If nothing else, we can probably transmute the wall into pudding if we get our skill high enough," Myst pointed out as he handed Neville the book.

Neville opened the book then handed it to Hermione. "How does that help?"

"We'd be coming at things from another angle and we can go straight for the tower," Myst suggested as he started walking towards the tower, fairly sure it wouldn't be quite that easy but not particularly worried as the dungeon was supposed to be easy according to his list.

"It shouldn't be too hard to grab twenty gnomes then turn the quest in, let's make sure we can actually hit them with our spells." Hermione opened the book then stuck it in the party inventory.

"Works for me," Myst agreed as he started walking towards the tower. He focused on his new spell when a group of gnomes rushed out of the hedge towards them and pushed magic into the spell, trying to picture the gnome changing into chocolate. He shivered when the top half of the gnome turned into chocolate and the legs kept running for several steps before it fell over with the legs twitching. He focused on the next one, the spell working correctly on it, however the right half of the gnome next to his target turned into chocolate and fell over.

"Crap," Hermione sputtered, not happy about her failed spell and the fact that it was twitching which made everything more real.

"Yes!" Neville shouted when his target turned into a chocolate figurine. "I can do transfiguration!"

"Nice!" Scarlet encouraged as she tagged one of the targets, changing its legs into chocolate and putting a large dent in her mana pool. "I'm going to need more magic," she noted with a frown, unconcerned with the mutilated gnome attempting to claw its way towards her.

"We'll work on it," Myst assured her as he tagged the next gnome that was charging at them.

'It's like science class, with the frogs,' Hermione told herself, thinking of her teacher's demonstration when he'd cut up a frog. She focused and changed one of the gnomes into chocolate, managing to change most of it into chocolate this time, but leaving the nose and ears untouched. "I'm not eating that."

"Not without checking it and melting it," Myst replied as he continued transmuting gnomes, rather happy with the experience his skill was getting. “Remember we need twenty garden gnomes so don’t turn them all into chocolate.”

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