Replacement Boy That Lived Part 10 (Patreon)

Hermione gave Scarlet an uneasy look as they headed back towards the tower after turning in their quest to collect the gnomes. "What makes you think I can even do a cartwheel?"

"Because it's easy," Scarlet replied cheerfully.

"Prove it," Neville replied, unwilling to admit that he only had a vague idea what a cartwheel was.

"That might not…" Hermione trailed off as Scarlet leaned sideways, raised her hands and threw herself sideways, causing her dress to fall down when she flipped upside down and showed off the fact that loincloths weren't built for cartwheels.

Neville stared at Scarlet as she sprang to her feet, not remotely sure how she'd placed her hands or any of the important details other than the fact that she wasn't wearing 'normal' underwear. "Merlin…"

Scarlet grinned as she spun around to look at Neville. "Just like that, your turn."

"Sorry, can you do that again?!" Neville blurted, his ears already turning red. "I missed how you placed your hands."

'Not surprising,' Hermione thought, not sure if he honestly wanted to learn or just wanted to see her do another cartwheel. 'At least he's not being rude. Maybe school won't be so bad.'

"Give me a second to adjust things, the dress almost tripped me," Scarlet replied as she opened her equipment page and moved her belt to her inventory. She grabbed her dress and moved it to her inventory, leaving her in just her translucent loincloth. "Much better."

Neville stared at Scarlet, his mind going sort of blank and his ears turning red.

Hermione took a second to appreciate the view then glanced at Neville. "I think you broke him."

"Just use the Russian method of restarting glitched machinery," Myst suggested with a grin.

"What's that?" Scarlet asked.

"Percussive maintenance," Myst replied 'innocently'.

"Could be worse," Hermione mused, thinking of some of the reactions she'd seen at clothing optional beaches.

"I'm fine," Neville replied before someone hit him on the head. "I just wasn't expecting her to ditch her clothes."

"Why not?" Scarlet asked with a grin.

"Because…" Neville trailed off, fairly sure he didn't want to argue against Scarlet running around half dressed. "Never mind."

"Exactly, we're in a dungeon," Scarlet replied as she gestured at the scenery. "If we want to strip and run around blasting things with magic, who's going to complain?"

"Idiots?" Myst asked, rather amused by the way Neville was trying and failing not to stare. 'At least he's not making a complete idiot out of himself.'

"When in Rome," Hermione mused, deciding to roll with it.

"Does that mean you'll join me?" Scarlet asked hopefully.

Hermione glanced at Myst then glanced at Neville's face which looked rather flushed. "I doubt we'll find a place to swim," she said, not sure that beach rules really applied and not interested in being naked in public with people she'd just met.

"Can you show us another cartwheel, I sort of missed how you did it the first time," Neville asked hopefully.

'There might be some hope for you,' Myst thought as Scarlet turned and did another cartwheel.

"Like this," Hermione offered as she leaned sideways and did a cartwheel, fairly sure the boys were too distracted to notice any mistakes she'd make.

Myst lunged forward, twisted sideways and did two 'cartwheels' in a row then turned to look at Neville. "It takes a bit of practice but it should let you increase your agility thanks to the group magic."

"Same with lifting heavy stones?" Neville asked, hoping he could increase his five points of strength to something more impressive or at least something reasonable.

"In theory," Myst agreed.

"What happens if I fall on my face?" Neville asked warily, uncomfortable with the idea of falling on his face in front of people.

"You get back up and try again," Myst replied with a shrug.

"Just like that?" Neville asked.

"Yep!" Scarlet replied with a grin. "It's just like singing, it takes practice unless you're like the rest of my family, they can sing at the drop of a hat and come up with entire songs without missing a beat, it's a bit annoying if I'm being honest."

"Everyone fails eventually, it's how you deal with failure that shows what type of a person you are," Myst told him.

"At least we have healing magic," Neville muttered, fairly sure he was going to screw up.

"It took me a couple of tries before I figured out how to do a halfway decent cartwheel," Hermione offered. "I can give you some pointers."

"Thank you," Neville replied as he pulled his attention away from Scarlet's breasts, trying to concentrate on learning how to do a decent cartwheel so he could increase his agility and stop being quite so clumsy.

"Do you want to help me find some large rocks?" Myst asked Scarlet, figuring Neville would do better without an audience for his first couple of tries.

"Race you!" Scarlet shouted as she sprinted towards the rocks she could see in the distance, tossing in the occasional cartwheel and somersault to mix things up and see if she could get a point of agility.

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the wizarding world managed to erase everyone's knowledge or at least belief in magic and hide their existence," Hermione said thoughtfully.

"There are spells to erase memories," Neville explained.

"Even with that, you'd think people would notice," Hermione argued, making a mental note to ask Myst how they managed to keep things hidden since he seemed to have a better understanding of both worlds than Neville.

"Would you have believed in magic without proof?" Neville asked.

"I've been able to use telekinesis for as long as I could remember," Hermione pointed out. "I was leaning towards psychic powers but magic wasn't completely out of the question."

"It's hard to imagine a world without magic," Neville admitted.

"Walk around London, it's easy to see," Hermione suggested. "Raise your arms above your head then you sort of lean sideways, push off with your left arm then your right then you just land on your feet."

Neville glanced at the ground. "This is going to hurt."

"Only the first couple of times," Hermione assured him.

Neville stared at Hermione. "Was that supposed to be encouraging?"

"Yes," Hermione replied as she tried to remember how her gym teacher had explained the process.

0o0o0

"You're evil," Neville complained, feeling like his lungs and legs were on fire as they followed Scarlet around the outside of the maze, pushing himself more than he'd ever expected to be able to so that he could keep up with the nearly naked girl and doing his best to keep track of his decreasing stamina bar.

"If you can talk, you're not running hard enough," Scarlet teased as she increased the pace.

Myst glared at the experience bar under his vitality stat, more than a little annoyed that it was just hovering at the end of the bar and had been for the last two minutes of sprinting. 'Fuck it!' he told himself as he pushed his body to move faster despite the fact that his stamina was hovering around zero and moving faster increased the amount of pain was in trying to keep up the pace. He forced his legs to move faster and ignored the pain in his chest as he closed the distance. He reached out to poke her in the back then stumbled and crashed when his vitality bar 'finally' hit the cap and drained, bumping his vitality up to 19 points.

Neville jumped Myst then tumbled and rolled when he failed to make the landing, picking up another point of agility for his 'save'.

Hermione slowed to a stop. "Are you okay?"

"No," Neville muttered as he tried and failed to get his feet under him. "I'm just going to sit here until things stop spinning."

Myst cast a healing spell on himself to deal with the damage from the fall and the fact that he'd been burning through all his stamina in an attempt to power level his vitality. "I'm up to 19 vitality."

"Does that mean we can stop?" Scarlet asked, getting a bit tired herself, despite her better agility and vitality.

"Might as well," Myst replied as he picked himself up off the ground and dusted himself off. "We should have enough mana for another run at the tower."

Neville cast his healing spell on himself and side in relief as everything stopped hurting and the burning feeling in his lungs vanished, as his stamina bar refilled. "Much better."

"If you're not cheating, you're not trying," Myst said as he turned his attention towards the hedge. "Is everyone ready for combat?"

"Give me a second," Neville said as he got up and wiggled his legs and arms, wanting to make sure nothing was broken. "Everything seems fine and I'm at full health."

"Good," Myst replied as he focused on the hedge, mentally combining his runes for wall, transmute, and tapioca pushing mana into his spell, causing a section of the hedge to change into a sort of green snot colored mess and his mana pool to take a rather large hit.

"That's…" Hermione trailed off as the 'wall' wobbled and fell apart, oozing out of the hedge like pudding and revealing the back of a female statue in the middle of a large marble edged style pool taking up most of the clearing and a dozen gnomes running around the outside of the pool with barbeque forks they were using like miniature tridents.

"Disgusting?" Neville asked.

"That works," Hermione agreed as she gestured and sent a firebolt at the group of gnomes charging towards the hole in the wall.

"Bubble," Neville said as he sent a poison bubble at the breach in the hedge.

Myst waited for a dozen gnomes to charge into the bubble and fall over then ignited it with a firebolt, catching another seven gnomes in the blast and clearing out most of the puddling, splattering the group with it.

Scarlet tossed a firebolt at another group or gnomes, while wiping pudding off her face with her left hand and smiled when she picked up a point of magic. "I just hit six points of magic!"

"This is the worst tapioca pudding I've ever tasted, it has a heavy aftertaste of lawn clippings,” Hermione joked, grateful they’d learned a cleaning spell without which she would have been quite put out, “my complaints to the chef.” She snapped her fingers, casting the cleaning spell on herself and smiled, happy the foul tasting pudding had vanished back to whatever hell it had been summoned from.

"Next time, you're in charge of the pudding," Myst replied with amusement as he glanced at Scarlet. "At least we know we can grind it up with practice." A flick of his fingers cleaning himself and Scarlet of the gooey substance. Brief thoughts about wading pools and wrestling sprang to mind but were pushed aside as he silently cursed his vivid imagination and youthful hormones.

Neville checked his magic attribute, noticing that the experience bar had barely moved, even with all of the spells he'd been casting. "It's going to take a while for the rest of us." He made a sweeping hand gesture as if wiping himself down with a towel, vanishing his own splatter of inedible pudding.

"We're probably better off stabbing hags with the dagger," Myst mused as he watched Hermione go to town, casting firebolts on the gnomes that were charging them. 'Nothing like a bit of hands-on experience to give people confidence.'

"Does the wizarding world have any spells to put people to sleep?" Scarlet asked as Hermione finished off the last of the gnomes, causing a book to drop along with some odds and ends that didn't look particularly impressive.

Hermione gestured and levitated the book over to her hand. "Neville?"

"There's a stunner and potions," Neville replied as Hermione grabbed the book and opened it. "Anything good?"

Hermione opened her crafting menu. "A crafting skill and fountain schematics."

Myst glanced at the bronze girl on a stand in the middle of the pool. "Might be interesting, do we want to go back to running for a bit or do we want to explore the maze?"

Scarlet smiled at Hermione. "We found a pool, I want to go swimming."

Hermione glanced at the rather inviting looking pool then shook her head. "Let's make sure we're not going to get swarmed by gnomes first."

"Works for me," Myst offered, then gestured at the pudding on the ground and used his cleaning spell to try to get rid of the mess. "Huh," he muttered when his spell was discovered to be much less effective than he was hoping. "Let me try something else." He added the spray rune to his cleaning rune and worked on cleaning up the mess, finding while it did take a decent amount of mana, it was nowhere near as draining as his other experiments with the spray rune were.

"That would be great for cleaning the attic," Hermione mused.

"Do we want to try the path or just hit another wall?" He asked once he finished cleaning up most of the path.

"Do you have enough mana?" Scarlet asked, wanting to make sure they weren't going to run into trouble.

"I should be fine." Myst pulled a mana potion out of his inventory and drank it then stuck the empty bottle back in his inventory.

"In that case, let's break some walls," Scarlet replied with a grin.

"We should probably loot everything first," Hermione pointed out as she handed the crafting book to Myst.

"You already grabbed the best loot," Myst replied as he opened the book, picking up a crafting skill and a decent collection of patterns. He handed the book to Scarlet then started levitating the random bits of loot over so he could stick them in his inventory, not exactly sure why the gnomes were dropping things like spark plugs and rubber ducks but figuring it had something to do with Arthur or maybe his obsession with muggle technology had something to do with the dungeon.

Neville glanced at Myst then grinned and cast his own telekinesis spell and got to work collecting the loot. "Do you think we could use telekinesis to fly?"

"We'd probably need a harness or some practice staying on our feet," Hermione mused as the boys worked on looting, fairly sure everyone other than Scarlet had enough magic to lift themselves off the ground.

"Add it to the list," Myst suggested, fairly sure Hermione had a list of things to test. 'I wonder if that's how Voldemort could fly or maybe he just enchanted his boots?'

"How many dungeons does the wizarding world have access to?" Hermione asked Neville.

"It's hard to say," Neville considered the question as they finished looting, “since all the dungeons that are known are at the older families’ properties it’s considered family secrets and not something they tend to share.”

"Best guess?" Scarlet asked, bouncing on her heels a little and hiding the grin as Neville’s head followed in response.

Neville blinked and shook his head, realizing he was staring again and glad that she wasn't glaring at him or getting wound up at the way his gaze kept returning to her breasts despite his breast… erm best… okay, halfhearted efforts to look away. "Most of the old families claim to have access to a dungeon but aren't willing to describe their dungeons in detail or let people explore them because they only open at certain times, normally on the solstices and one or two other days of significance or at least that’s the way the three well known ones work."

"I can't say I blame them," Myst said, fairly sure the Malfoys would love to steal dungeons if they could get away with it. "How many dungeons did Voldemort raid during the war?"

"I don't know," Neville admitted. "I know he sent two dozen people to break into the Lovegood's dungeon during the war, nineteen of them never came back, three of them turned back after twenty minutes jumping at shadows and worried about a blonde girl with a sword and two of them came back gibbering wrecks."

"Lovegoods?" Hermione asked.

"Their dungeon has access to Wonderland or possibly the place the stories were based off," Myst explained, thinking about what Luna had mentioned about the dungeon.

"Oh," Hermione admitted.

Neville turned to look at Hermione. "You've heard of it?"

"There's a muggle story about a girl's adventures in a strange world, it was supposed to be fiction," Hermione explained.

"Weird, I'll have to take a look," Neville said.

Myst turned his attention towards the hedge across the pool and turned it to pudding, burning through a decent chunk of mana and revealing a passage and another wall. "This could take a while."

"Break another one, then we can run around the maze again to work on our vitality and stamina while we wait for our mana to refill," Hermione suggested, knowing she needed to work on her attributes if she wanted to keep up with Myst and Scarlet.

"Sure," Myst replied as he walked into the maze, wanting to get a touch closer as distance seemed to increase the mana cost of that particular spell.

0o0o0

Hermione frowned when Neville tossed a poison bubble down the passage. "Now you're just being paranoid…" she trailed off when she heard someone she couldn't see cough from the direction of the poison bubble.

Scarlet spun and tossed a firebolt into the bubble, causing it to explode and a shimmering barely visible form to stumble out of it. "Assassin!"

Myst gestured and telekinetically shoved everything in the passage when the barely there figure blasted Neville with lightning, revealing a second Neville. He used his telekinesis to pin the man's arms to the dirt path. "Are you still alive?"

Hermione cast a healing spell on Neville, more than a little unnerved by the fact that he was smoking and that there was a large burn mark on his shirt.

"Surprisingly," Neville replied, pain in his voice as he worked on healing himself the rest of the way, letting out a relieved sigh when the pain vanished as the healing magic repaired his nerves and blackened skin.

Myst frowned when the figure knocked his hat off during his struggles and changed before his eyes, going from a copy of Neville to a five foot elf with purple skin, dark leather clothes and a black cloak that sparkled with stars. "Hermione, can you get his legs with telekinesis?"

Scarlet used her telekinesis to steal the elf's wand, wanting to make sure he couldn't hit anyone else with a lightning bolt. "I got his wand."

Hermione cast her telekinesis spell and grabbed the man's legs, pinning them in place with two hundred pounds of pressure. "What is he?"

"I'm guessing some type of elf," Myst replied as he studied the angry looking elf, curious why a Pathfinder dark elf ended up in a dungeon with wizarding style gnomes. "Why did you try to kill us?"

"Because you're in my maze and you killed my minions," the elf snapped. "When I get out of here, I'm going to skin you."

"You're not helping your case for making it out alive," Scarlet pointed out.

"I'm going to fuck you to death girl-" whatever else he was going to say was lost to his high pitched shrieking as Scarlet gestured, grabbed his testicles with fifty pounds of force and squeezed.

Neville winced at the volume of the man's shriek, wondering what the hell had happened.

'Idiot,' Myst thought, making a mental note to figure out methods to keep someone from using telekinesis to crush vital organs. He focused on the bones in the elf's hand, trying to figure out if he could 'feel' them or manipulate them with telekinesis.

"We need a spell to knock people out," Scarlet said as she twisted a bit harder to make sure he wasn't faking. "Can I borrow your knife?"

Myst pulled the knife out of his inventory and handed it to her. "You're going to want to steal his clothes first."

"How sure are we that he's a dungeon monster?" Hermione asked warily.

"It's his tower," Scarlet said as she walked over and slammed the hilt of the knife into the elf’s temple, knocking him unconscious before she started stripping the elf, not particularly concerned if he was a dungeon monster or not since he was a monster.

Myst moved the unconscious and soon to be dead elf's limbs so that Scarlet could steal his cloak, boots, weapons, silver ring and his clothes.

"Now what?" Neville asked, thinking about how they were going to safely carry the elf back to the crazy gnome lady so they could collect the quest reward.

"Easy, we make sure he can't hurt anyone," Scarlet said and slit the elf's throat with the magic stealing dagger, easily moving aside so the sudden spray of blood didn’t get on her clothes, what little she was wearing.

Myst winced when Neville turned and lost his lunch into the bushes. 'Can't really blame him, he's a kid and he's not a gamer. Just because you know they're fake doesn't mean it doesn't get you when it happens.' He frowned when he realized the elf wasn't vanishing. 'Shit, they're going to be in therapy for years.' He sighed in relief when the elf vanished and left a heavy looking tome that was bound in purple leather.

Hermione stared at the book on the ground, wondering how long it would take before she stopped seeing the dungeon creatures as people. "Shouldn't we have turned him over to the woman in the other tower?"

"No idea," Myst admitted as he used his telekinesis to float the book over to his hand. He stuck the tome in his inventory and looked at the description. 'How to Make Gnomes Pay, a guide to the care and husbandry of gnomes for the purpose of world domination.' He opened the book and blinked when he got a spell for controlling gnomes and several alchemy recipes using gnome parts. He glanced down at the first page. "Step one, collect gnomes. Step two, send gnomes after underwear. Step three ???. Step four, world domination?"

"How does that even work?" Hermione asked.

"It doesn't say, the third step is just three question marks, it might be a do it yourself project," Myst mused, not quite sure how you'd used gnomes to rule the world or what underwear had to do with it.

Hermione shook her head. "I'm guessing he was mad."

"I'm hoping he was eccentric rather than mad," Scarlet said thoughtfully as she glanced up at the tower she could see in the distance.

"What's the difference?" Neville asked after hitting his mouth with his cleaning spell.

"If you have enough money you move from mad to eccentric and considering how mad he was, that would take a lot of money," Scarlet replied as she gestured towards the tower. "Besides, I've never looted a tower before."

"Always a first time," Myst said cheerfully as he headed down the passage towards the tower with a spring in his steps.