Life is More Than a Game

Chapter XVI: Exploration

A full moon hung over the Malfoy Estate, bathing the entire property in a silvery light. Many of the creatures that roamed the grounds were asleep. The denizens of the house should have been resting as well, but I just couldn't help myself. I really wanted to check out a few things. Victoria was still asleep and I assumed my parents also would be.

I opened my window and hopped down, hitting the ground with a thud, nearly falling over. Thankfully, I was able to keep my balance and looked around. This place looked so different at night! I could see a rather large eclipse of moths, probably a hundred in number, resting on one of the Blue Oaks, their wings glowing silver. They all flew up in a swarm not a moment after I noticed them though, as a raccoon appeared on the tree.

It's not as if it had been hiding or anything. It wasn't there one moment and then it was, as if it had been invisible or something. The creature did seem quite happy to munch on the moth it had caught, eyes meeting mine for a moment. I just watched for a second, but then decided to go on my way. Luckily, my window faced the place I wanted to go. Even more luckily, it was quite impossible for me to get lost.

Even from this distance, even as dark as it was, the Mushroom Forest that my father had cultivated was easily visible thanks to the fungi's own bioluminescence – theirs green instead of silver. I walked in that direction, digging the flashlight I kept in my room out of my pocket so I could go explore. Though I wasn't supposed to go over there, father had said, I was far too curious to see what I could find!

Waiting to turn it on until after the house was out of sight. Once I did, I could only marvel at all the sights. I'd have to come out at night more often. There were beetles that turned to solid rock as I shined light on them, monkeys with two tails, owls that seemed to be made of wood perched on branches, and looking for prey and so many other things that I couldn't even begin to take in on my way.

After some minutes, I noticed that raccoon from earlier walking beside me. Stopping, I looked down at it, while it just looked up at me. "Hey there little guy." It gave me a blank stare. "Girl?" The raccoon seemed to become visibly happier. I wasn't sure how I could tell, but there seemed to be a little more emotion in its eyes, a slight twitch of the tail, things like that.

"What are you doing out here, huh?" I wondered. Grabbing the backpack I'd taken with me, I rustled through it and found one of the snacks I'd brought so I didn't get hungry. Raccoons like granola bars, right?

Opening it up and handing it to her, I watched as she greedily consumed it. It was kind of mesmerizing to see, but only lasted a couple minutes. I'd already shut my bag and gotten it back on by the time she was done. "You wanna come with me?" I asked. Obviously I didn't get an answer, but I didn't expect one, so I continued my journey with a new friend in tow as I headed out.

It wasn't long thereafter that we reached the very edge of my destination. Welcoming us were a pair of very thin, white stalks that looked almost like an entrance. Up, up, and further up were their caps, probably a full 200 feet above. Just the sheer size of them was amazing. They easily dwarfed almost every tree on the entire property.

Through the welcoming stalks I went, looking around. I could see slugs of all things moving up and down wider stalks of brown mushrooms about as tall as the Blue Oaks. Ants marched in long trails through the forest – on the ground, up the stalks, everywhere. There was even one red stalk about as two feet in diameter with ants walking up it in six spiraling trails. Whatever was in that one's cap must've been quite delicious.

Looking down, I saw my raccoon friend was still following me, also looking around. I didn't understand what dad was going on about. This place was cool! There were a lot of bugs that Vicky and mom probably wouldn't like, but who cares?

As I continued, I felt this… strange sense of foreboding. It sort of felt like I was being watched, but I couldn't quite place why. Looking around, I tried to see if there was anything bigger than those slugs in my general vicinity. Besides my new raccoon friend, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Perhaps it was just the atmosphere. As much as I think this place is cool, it's deathly quiet. There aren't any birds or flying insects to create background noise, and it was probably causing me to feel a tad on edge when the only sounds are my own footsteps. Even the raccoon's paws made no noise on the grass.

I had to take a moment to collect myself before pressing forward. There was nothing here. There was nothing to worry about. Flashlight pointed forward, I headed deeper into the Forest. That feeling of creepiness really started to creep in as I noted an enormous web between two large mushroom stalks, a spider the size of a wolf lying in wait. Quite swiftly, I decided to give that thing a wide berth.

Straying from the main path, I found other things that started to give me an idea of why this place was forbidden. Condors with glowing, green eyes were looking down from smaller mushrooms, eyeing any potential meals. There was a lake that, when I shone my light on it, began rippling menacingly. I don't know what was in there, but I didn't stick around to find out.

Eventually, I find myself in an open area. No animals, no lakes and not even any mushrooms exist here. Well, for the most part that's true. In the very center is… it looks like a grizzly bear of all things.

Approaching it, I notice that it's not asleep. It appears to be dead. Several large stalks are protruding from its back, with a large, white mass of fungi growing out of its head. It's almost like a tumor. Large chunks of its stomach seem to be missing fur, with the flesh underneath halfway rotted away. There are patches like that all over its body, actually. Its claws were long and black, though coated in what looked like dried blood.

Stepping closer to it, I could feel a strange, burning sensation in my nostrils. The stench was really strong, but I wanted to get a closer look. When I got within a few feet, I stopped. That… tumor of fungi on its head started to pulse. It was a strange sight to behold, since it didn't all pulse at the same time. It was slightly off-sync so that each of the five large growths were moving just a second apart.

More importantly, the bear's eyes opened and looked right at me. It went from lying on the ground to on its feet in a little less than two seconds, roaring loudly at me. I wanted to run, but my feet wouldn't move no matter how hard I tried. The thing seemed to smell my fear and rushed forward. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as I saw those dagger-like claws coming right for my face.

"Reducto!" A streak of blue light sped over my head and hit the bear directly between the eyes, causing its head to explode, splattering me in copious amounts of blood and brain matter. The rest of its body was sent flying into a nearby stalk, causing the whole mushroom to fall to the forest floor.

I turned around slowly to see who had saved me, expecting a furious father or my angry mother. Instead, it was my older sister! "Amelia?" Amelia was tall for a girl, probably somewhere around five and a half feet, with our father's blonde hair tied into a tight bun and the family's blue eyes. I immediately turned away. "Why are you naked?"

After a moment, she spoke. "Ah, forgot about that. Hold on a moment." She spoke some spell I didn't recognize the words of. "Okay, there we are. It's only a temporary Transfiguration, but it should be fine." I turned around and noted that she was wearing a plain white dress now. "Now, what in the hell do you think you were doing?"

"Uh… I wanted to see what was here…" I said rather shyly, knowing full well I shouldn't have been here. "Wait… what are you doing here?" I wondered, confused as to why my sister was naked in the Mushroom Forest she also wasn't supposed to be in.

"Uh… well you see… don't try and turn this around on me!" I just looked at her. "Fine! Well, I guess you won't tell since we'd both get in trouble. Come here though, let me get that stuff off of you." A flick of her wrist and Amelia sprayed the gunk off of my face, another and I was dry. "That Raccoon you saw? That was me. I managed to find out how to become an Animagi, but I haven't registered with MACUSA yet, so you can't tell anyone, alright?" I nodded. "Good. Let's get back home then. And don't come back here. This place is way too dangerous for you."

I was about to argue when I suddenly felt a headache coming on. I shut my eyes in pain…

[][][]

When I reopened them, I was staring up at the ceiling in my room. Slowly sitting up, I placed my hand over my head and looked around. Was that all a dream?

An ear-shattering roar to my left had me turn so quickly I thought I might break my neck, that same undead bear from earlier standing in my room and jumping at me. Right as it was about to land on me, it disappeared from existence.

Status [Post-Traumatic Stress Hallucination] nullified by [Gamer's Mind]

"What in the fucking hell is going on, System? Why am I having hallucinations?" I demand. Somehow, I remember that there are other people asleep and manage to say it in only a very indignant whisper, instead of yelling it. After a moment, I can hear that sugary sweet voice again.

"Ah, I thought I forgot to mention something! Yes! Now, what you just experienced was not a dream, but a memory of the shell you're inhabiting. You didn't spawn out of thin air, like in the last world. I believe that particular memory was from… where is it? Ah, here we are: July 22 of last year. The file was marked as extremely important, so we used that for the first memory."

"First memory? What do you mean by that? I'm going to have more?" It all felt so real, like it was actually me. Those thoughts didn't feel foreign at all. Looking back on them now, I can see that they weren't mine, but in that moment it was organic.

"Each night, in fact! We didn't want to off-load all of the memories onto you and your companion at once, so this compromise was found. It is a lot slower, so it might be the case that you act a bit out of character, so to speak, around those that your shell once knew, but it should be fine."

"Companion? You mean Victoria has to deal with this as well? I'll have to talk to her later about it, let her know what's going on. This place is definitely more dangerous than I first thought though, if that sort of thing was so close to the house, relatively speaking. Anything else you want to tell me?"

"Hm… nope! I do believe that's everything! If I think of anything, I will definitely let you know though! Good luck!"

I couldn't help but sigh and shake my head. Well, it looked like the Sun was just barely creeping out from the horizon. If it was already dawn, there was no use in attempting to sleep longer, especially since I only actually needed a half hour of rest. What would I do in the meantime, though?

Well, if nothing else, the dream did show me that exploration was a viable option. It was probably for the best if I stayed inside the house though. So, what better way to figure things out than to bring up my map?

As I did so, I noticed a few things. First off, Marcus and Elizabeth were now on the map. Their markers were adjacent and in the same room down the hall past Victoria's. That must be their bedroom.

Secondly, some of the rooms were labeled now. The kitchen, Victoria's room and my own room had labels. As I watched, my parents' room also had a label materialize. There were plenty of other rooms to explore though. I didn't know what I wanted to find, but surely there was something interesting that wouldn't get me killed.

However, there was actually a decent chance that I wouldn't come back to my room before we left, so I decided to get into some real clothes. With that done, I entered the hallway with one eye on my map to make sure no one else moved.

I decided to take a left towards the front room. When I reached it, three paths lay before me. One was to go back into the hall, another was to go towards the kitchen and dining room. The most interesting, however, was a set of stairs directly before the front door. That was clearly the best option.

As much as I'd like to get to the top of the flight as quickly as possible, I was smarter than that. I made sure to test each wooden step before I put my full weight on it, making sure none of them were squeaky. It was far from the first time I'd been the first one awake in the house and I was probably going to get into something I had no business in.

Whenever both my feet were at the top of the stairs, the entire layout of the map changed. I hadn't gone up here yet, so I didn't realize that the map changed based on which floor you were on. That was actually pretty cool. It was currently oriented with me at the bottom, and a little stair icon with an arrow pointed downward. Next to the icon were the markers denoting Victoria, Marcus and Elizabeth.

Based on the map, there were four rooms on each side of this hallway before it opened up into T-intersection. Actually, based on the map, this house was enormous. I counted over 30 rooms on this floor, with an additional four sets of stairs. Despite my initial opinion, I suppose Marcus really was fit to be a Malfoy.

Looking over the layout of this floor, most of the rooms were either small enough to be closets or a little larger than my room. However, there was one room at the center of the house that took up something like 60% of the floor's space. Halls surrounded it on every side, with three other T-intersections that led to their own stairs, as well as a stairwell inside the center of the large room. That seemed like the best place to start.

If I had just an extra day or two, I probably would have explored the rest of the house and not just the big room, though. Each room I passed by seemed interesting. Some rooms were glowing various colors behind the doors. Others were giving off strange noises.

I'd already come to a decision though. So, with that in mind, I made my way to a pair of double doors at the end of the hall. They opened inward without a sound as I turned the knob, and my eyes widened.

Books! There were shelves and shelves of thick tomes from floor to ceiling. The room itself was enormous as well. It was circular and probably had a diameter of a couple hundred feet. Those bookshelves lined every wall. At the very center, a spiral staircase led upstairs. Scattered around the library were various chairs and tables, quills with inkwells and stationary in neat piles.

Curiously, I walked to the spiral staircase and looked up. Amazingly, it kept going up further than I could see. Did Marcus have that many books? Just how wealthy was this family? Actually, just what did Marcus do? Was he an enchanter? A Potionmaster? A Dark Wizard?

Elizabeth was clearly a duelist, based on her classes. Marcus' classes were a bit more vague though. What kind of profession required Blood Magic? That seemed like it would be excessively, or at least potentially, Black Magic, not just Dark Magic.

Well, Magical America was probably quite different from Magical Britain. Perhaps that sort of thing was more common. I think that there was a movie that was supposed to have taken place in America, but I never really got a chance to watch it before I died. Hopefully it wasn't too important.

There wasn't really any point in worrying over that though. Most importantly was that I had an unknown amount of time before we had to go and a functionally infinite number of books to find anything useful within. Since I couldn't grind, this was the next best bet I had to find any advantage over my future peers.

So, I decided to start looking through the books near the door I came through first. There had to be something useful, right? Well, that entirely depended on what it is I wanted. What did I want?

I thought about it a moment, recalling my starting skills. If I understood Magical Blood correctly, I should be able to pick up skills without having to rely on the clusters I obtained every 5 levels.

"Oh! I remembered something I was supposed to tell you now!" I could feel myself approaching a faint echo of seething rage the moment I heard her voice before it disappeared. I was never really good at holding grudges, but purposefully fucking with my emotions after I've gone my whole life without them was a good way to get me started. It's fine. It's fine. What I needed was to stay cool right now.

"Okay, what is it?" I wondered as I continued browsing the spines. Well, I gave off the image I was doing that, anyways. My brain was trying to be angry, while some interdimensional entity kept it from doing so. It was more than a little distracting.

"Right! So, certain classes don't actually give you skill clusters every few levels. Most of the Mage classes native to this world are like that, such as the Sorcerer Class you've currently got equipped. Actually, essentially any class that would be affected by Magical Blood won't give you free Skills on level-up."

I could hear the Voice humming for a moment. "Actually, that's not quite true. Classes affected by Magical Blood will give certain passive Skills that unlock the ability to use active Skills, or make them easier. So, you can expect to get notifications for those at various points. To be fair though, those passive skills can be learned via study because of how Magical Blood works. Actually, that seems like a potential balance issue that I should bring up at the next meeting."

Oh, great. It's just one thing after another. Okay, there shouldn't be anything quite as life-threatening here as there was in Skyrim, so I could handle a slightly higher difficulty floor in my leveling. Once I get a couple good spells, I should be more than capable of grinding quickly, even without my Instant Dungeon.

Thinking more on it, I actually don't mind this system that much. The previous one meant that I had knowledge forcefully shoved into my mind. This one meant that I had to learn the theory associated with each magic and build up. That led to the possibility of making my own Skills eventually.

Yeah, this could work out just fine to my advantage. I get to choose which Skills to focus on. I get to pick up Skills faster than once every five levels. I get to choose the pace at which I progress, instead of the System giving me four Skills that may or may not actually be useful. I think I might enjoy this particular system even more than the previous one, despite being less convenient.

Now more comfortable with my situation, I turned back to looking over the multitude of books at my disposal. I had a significant issue in that I didn't know how long I had and also that I couldn't really take these books. It was one thing to swipe a potion or two from a shop. They wouldn't notice it. It was another thing altogether to steal a single book from the library of a man whom I still wasn't entirely sure wouldn't kill me.

I really needed to get some memories of Marcus so I understood better where I stood with him, and where he stood regarding the boy I took control of. Because honestly, I didn't really know… well, anything, about this Orpheus besides the dream from last night. At least Victoria got a little leeway with the hybridization of her Skyrim self and her Wizarding World self.

Perhaps I only needed to last a week or so though. It was probably for the best that I spend as little time as was possible around my parents. After a year at Hogwarts, any changes could be assumed to be from my new environment, so I shouldn't have to worry anymore. At least, I really hoped that was the case.

All this worrying did me absolutely no good though. I needed to focus. I wasn't even properly reading the titles of these books. How could I hope to learn anything if I was this anxious? And just where was my Gamer's Mind to keep me calm?

"Oops, my bad!" The Voice piped in. I could feel my nerves settling even as she said that. "Doing a bit of multitasking right now. You would not believe the workload that my predecessor left for me! So much to do and so little time! Do carry on though!"

Shaking my head, I could feel that familiar calm return as I walked around the library. This was much better. I wasn't stressfully worrying over things I couldn't rightfully be expected to control. With my focus back, I was able to actually get something done.

"Let's see here. The Afro-Caribbean Blood Rituals, Blood Rites of the Aztecs, Essays on Edward Teach's Use of Ritual Magic, this is definitely not something I want just yet." I decided to ignore everything on that bookshelf. Blood Magic was not where I wanted to start this journey.

The next bookshelf contained things like Ethics of Legilimency, Basics of Occlumency and Magical Meditations. Mind Magic was definitely an interesting topic I'd like to explore, but I also did not want to trap myself in my own mind or become traumatized by whatever I might see when looking into the minds of a bunch of pubescent teenagers. My every waking moment would be spent trying to block out the thoughts of teenagers lusting after each other.

The Yeti Wars of 1837-1854, The Night of Terror, and Studies on the Jersey Devil told me that the next bookshelf was about Magical Creatures. A quick skimming of them and I realized all three were about American Creatures. The first detailed a war between Wizards and the various classes of Creatures categorized as Yetis – Bigfoot, Abominable Snowman, Wendigos, things like that – in the forests of western Canada. The second was about a colony in 17th century America whom had been slaughtered to the last by a roaming group of Dementors. Apparently it was also the third case of mass Obliviation in what would later become the Thirteen Colonies. The last one was simply a research paper on the Jersey Devil.

Finally, I managed to come across something that would help me after eight bookshelves. Wandless Charms: An Introduction sounded exactly like what I wanted. Opening it up, I couldn't help but grin. The table of contents was full of all sorts of things, but two in particular piqued my interest. Looks like I was going to learn how to wandlessly cast the Summoning and Banishing Charms.

It was time to grind.

And that's it!

Make sure to let me know your thoughts in a review, via PM (I check them every day, I swear) or over on the Discord server at Discord-dot-gg-slash-PWDD44v

I've also got a pat-reon now, if you really like what I do. pat-reon-dot-com-slash-orpheuskidwell

Orpheus out! Ja ne!