Games Gods Play Book 1: The Beginning

Chapter Three. She who needs no wand.

The Empire of Narret lies in the midst of the Northern continent, bordering Daed in the north and west and Efil in the east. Their lands are relatively cold, but not deathly, and the southern reaches of their territory are quite warm. They are a generally all-magic people, who despise anyone non-magical and any non-human at all... - From "The Chronicles of Otherworld".

Hermione woke up with a slight headache like that one time when she had to remember half of the Potions textbook after a night of celebrating the New Year, which included snogging and drinking... She needed to remember that text since in the chaos Gryffindor Tower turned into after the celebration, no book could be found, and everyone needed the Hangover Cure.

She found herself to be lying on the ground, the blue sky above her, the not-quite-warm wind making that position a bit hazardous to health...

"Right," she thought, "Fallen asleep at the telescope. Again."

With those thoughts, she lifted herself from the ground and started to brush the dirt off her robes. Robes? She wasn't wearing robes when she was watching stars!

She looked around. This definitely was not her home. A quick inspection of herself had revealed that she was wearing a set of blood-red robes covered with golden runes all over it, no wand, no anything... Except the small money pouch that was tied to her belt. It turned out to be containing several golden coins and a few silver ones, but none of them looked like wizarding money.

She was standing in a clearing in the middle of a small forest, a small town not that far in the distance. After straightening her robes out and checking if she removed all the dirt, she took off in the direction of the town.

*****

"Floo Powder? You must be joking, girl!" the woman behind the counter in the Magic Resources shop replied to her inquiry, "I've never heard of such a substance!"

"Very well..." said Hermione absent-mindedly as she left the shop.

"Never heard of Floo? Maybe this all was not a dream... This means that Harry and the others must be somewhere in this strange world as well!" she thought as she walked down the main street when two men dressed in official-looking grey robes stood in her path.

"Excuse me, sirs, could you please let me pass?" she asked, "It's the middle of the street after all--"

"I am sorry, fellow spellshaper, but we will have to check your papers. This is a military-restricted zone after all," the taller one replied. Something in his tone reminded Hermione of Snape - maybe the essence of hatred?

"Er... papers? Right, I have them right here..." she said in nervous voice, trying to think of a decent excuse. Just arrived and in trouble already... This was bad, real bad!

"Hurry up, will you?" the other man sneered.

"Er... seems that I've forgotten it somewhere..." she replied weakly, "Maybe I'll just--"

"Then you'll just come with us, girl!" the taller one growled, his hand shooting out, the fingers swiftly shaping a runic phrase in the air... Hermione felt her body going numb, as if the man put the Body-Bind spell on her. The two grabbed her by the hands and dragged her into the nearby building that had a sign saying "The City of Darekh. Prefecture."

*****

She was sitting locked up in a cell, her head resting on her hands. What did she do to deserve this? She looked around, hoping to see any possibility of escape.

The cell was old, quite well-used, if one could judge by the numerous scribblings on the walls- a lot of varied information was relayed there, ranging from who was an inmate here and when and ending with rather cheesy sex-related rhymes. After gazing at all of this, contemplating on what would Harry and Ron say if they read this particular rhyme about someone's as-- well, rear Hermione got bored pretty quickly.

She stood up, pacing back and forth nervously.

"What to do? What to do?" she kept asking herself.

Hermione suddenly remembered that she's a witch after all, and attempted one of the few tricks she could do without her wand - the Animagus transformation. And failed.

"All right, what if..."

She put her hand out in front of her and, muttering "Alohomora", she waved her hand at the cell door.

"Well, it was worth a--" she started to tell herself when the lock clicked open suddenly.

"Thank you, Lord Arquin!" she muttered as she sneaked out of the cell.

*****

Getting out was not very easy, but since she could do magic without her wand, as it turned out, it was not much of a problem - the guards apparently were not very familiar with magic and generally looked as if they were foreigners in this land of magic users.

Once she was back in the forest, she finally stopped, trying to catch her breath. Thrown into a far away world where magic is quite common to everyone, at least it seems so, and, worst of all, alone. She looked around, checking if anybody was following her, saw no-one, and dropped herself down onto the grass.

After a while, though, she heard voices. Not just voices, voices coming closer. This, and the fact that she was calmly sitting on the ground in a quite open spot, made her feel a bit nervous as she jumped up and darted into the bushes.

"So, who're we lookin' for?" one of the soldiers asked.

There were three of them, one was obviously their chief-in-command or something like that - his armour was cleaner, he had more confidence on his face and besides he was the one in the lead. The other two looked if not like fresh out of whatever educational institution trains them, then at least not that long after leaving it.

"A girl in her late teens. They say she's an illegal spellshaper," their commander replied, "Red robes, gold runes on 'em. Be on the lookout."

"Great, now I have soldiers looking for me!" she thought bitterly as she continued watching the soldiers. They split up, going in different directions. With horror slowly crawling into her mind, Hermione saw that one of the young-and-green soldiers headed towards the bushes she was hiding in.

The momentary panic disappeared quickly as she remembered that she did not need a wand to cast spells, so she just waved her hand in front of her, muttering a complex spell that was a very advanced-grade Confundus-type charm. The wispy white smoke that left her hand as she did this formed into the shape of a classical orc (as far as she knew how orcs looked like from the fantasy books, as she heard of no references to such creatures through the six years she spent n the wizarding world). The soldier looked a bit shocked to see the orc, yet did not flee. Hermione waved her hands about, and the orc drew two nasty-looking battle-axes. The soldier drew his own sword as well, but then quickly compared the sizes of his sword and the orc's two axes, and decided that calling for help is a better option.

Hermione swore silently and, holding one hand in front of her, thus keeping the illusion of the orc in existence, waved the other one, along with the first, making it appear as if the orc is attacking. The other hand produced the Stupefy spell, and, as the orc's axes came in contact with the soldier's helm, the spell knocked him out cold, cutting off the yell. Grinning at this success, she made the orc turn to the two other soldiers, which were standing not that far away from their fallen comrade, and were whispering to each other, and make a rude gesture in their general direction.

*****

"Damn, it got Archie!" the younger one whispered.

"What is it?" the older one asked, "I've never seen a greenskin like that - they don't look like that, they don't use axes, and they don't have chainmails!" he explained.

"Maybe some Summoned monster that got out of control?" the younger one suggested.

"How about this - we knock it out, then get Archie and make tracks!" the older one suggested, "Better not meet the Conjurer or Demonist that summoned this thing. Especially since it attacks soldiers of the Empire!"

The two exchanged encouraging nods and drew their swords.

*****

The grin was wiped from her face as she saw the two soldiers draw their swords. She settled onto a different plan, making the orc send another growl at the soldiers and run for it through the bushes. The bushes on the other side of the clearing, needless to say.

As the two charged forth to aid their fellow, she made her leave in the direction opposite of her illusion, which turned into shapeless white smoke as soon as it passed the bushes, thus leaving the sight of the guards.

That problem was already taken care of, she thought as she walked through the forest, hoping that the soldiers won't be too eager to go in the way other from the way the "monster" they saw went.

*****

She followed the path that led out onto the other side of the small forest. The trees did not look even remotely familiar, now that she finally paid them some attention, yet they looked so... so... earthly. As if they were made to be on Earth, yet Nature thought otherwise.

One way or the other, she soon found herself outside the forest, the hills lying in front of her. Apparently she had wandered in the wrong direction, as there were several armed men heading her way. She considered all the odds upon the soldier forces of Darekh informing the others of her presence, came to the conclusion that if they don't know what Floo Powder is then they probably don't use fireplaces for communication as well.

But, as she heard one of them yell something remotely sounding like "Get her!" she came to the conclusion that they must have some other means of long-distance communication.

In a swift wave of her hand, she Banished them, but since they were a bit more than pillows on which they were taught to Banish, all she did was make them fall over onto the ground. After muttering a quick "Sorry!" she darted for the forest again, making sure the hexes she threw at them to keep them on the ground worked.

*****

A bit of Transfiguration and some imagination use have given her a different outfit, for her own was easy to spot, and minutes later a simple (and magically challenged) peasant girl left the woods heading for the road leading away from the town. The road was quite long, and she had enough time to think over the three questions that were swarming within her head for quite a while now.

First - where is she? If she is in this world Arquin spoke of, then Harry, Ron and even Malfoy should be someplace here too, right?

Second - why people here speak English, even if it seems to carry a strange accent she cannot quite place? And why she can easily read the runes on all the writings here, though she is sure she sees those runes for the first time?

Third - Where does this road lead to???

*****

The road turned out to be leading towards the city of Zilhak, as the nearest signpost said. That told her exactly nothing, so she shrugged dismissively and put her fate into the hands of Chance.

The city turned out to be not that large as the word 'city' might've made one think it would be, yet it looked large enough for an outlaw to hide in... Provided the outlaw had money, as it happened in any town, city or whatever other form of massively populated areas one could ever imagine.

The guards at the city gates eyed her suspiciously, but let her through once she handed each a pair of gold coins. Actually, only one of each pair was real, the other was an illusion she created with some of the more obscure spells she found out between studies at Hogwarts.

After her studies, she had known quite a lot on the theory of hiding within a magic-use-is-allowed area with ease... The problem was that the theory surely did not include parts upon hiding within other planes of existence, and her lack of practical knowledge held her from inventing that particular part of theory on the spot.

She did what most people do in such situations - she went to an inn. The golden coins she was equipped with (on Arquin's behalf) proved to be a decent amount of incentive to the innkeeper to keep his mouth shut, as it turned out, for she was provided with a relatively decent room and board offer, and the rest was kept to the innkeeper's own well-being.

Having thus settled with a place to stay for the next few days or so, she had moved on to studying her whereabouts - the silver coins were invested into buying a small but well-detailed map of the Northern Continent, a bag of potion ingredients, just in case, and a small dagger - she had to have something for matters of self-defence.

*****

... The magical spheres in Otherworld are separated into several large groups, according to the effect they have on the world.

First comes the magic of warlocks and wizards, the only difference is that warlocks require no objects of power focusing (such as wands, staves and magical amulets) and have a generally weaker magical strength.

Then comes the magic of Summoning, separated into several subspheres: Elementalist - the power to summon elementals; Demonist - the power to summon demons and Spirit Shamans - the power to summon the wild spirits which did not fall into the former two categories.

The sphere of Necromancy governs the dead and death, turning both the macabric undead and their limbs into weapons of destruction and mayhem. It also incorporates several of the less complex combat spells of warlocks - but these 'borrowed' spells have a different magical source, and cannot be blocked or countered in the usual ways.

The Shamans are the emissaries of the gods, they tap into the forces of the deities they worship, thus performing 'acts of divine intervention' on behalf of their rulers. They are usually highly religious and do not easily take insults towards their deities, as some less lucky missionaries of Narret found out once.

Last, but not least, come the Priests, Paladins and Spiritual magic. Priests and Paladins tap into the powers of their One God, whose name they cannot say, for it would be blasphemous for them. They all are highly religious and usually well-trained in matters of physical combat, for their magic is only defensive and healing, although some follow the path of peaceful ways and only do the healing magic, thus helping the lives of those needing that help...

- From "The Chronicles of Otherworld".

*****

Hermione put aside the book on the local schools of magic. Apparently, she had her powers of a witch changed to those of a warlock, and though it diminished their strength, it also removed her need of a wand, and that was a thing worth mentioning, indeed.

She had also started a small journal, having the task of amassing all she knew of this world into it. After she accurately copied the more interesting (from her point of view) parts of the book into it, she had moved on to another interesting activity - checking if potions mixing in this world was any different from the one in hers.

As several burns on the table, a cut on her left-hand index finger and a bit of singed hair proved, nothing changed from practicing the obscure art of potion-brewing under the hateful gaze of professor Snape to doing so in a completely hostile environment that Otherworld seemed to be for her.

She shrugged at the thought of how easily she agreed to the fact that she was almost 'behind enemy lines', although Voldemort, obviously, could not reach into this world for them, and went down the stairs into the inn's mess hall to eat.

What brought her out of that wonderful state of "I'm unbeatable, ain't I?" her mind seemed to be in, was the sight of several soldiers bearing the all-too-familiar (now, at least) crest of the Empire coming into the very same inn as her, and seating themselves not that far from the table she was occupying solely.

Trying not to be very nervous-looking, she finished her meal and swiftly moved upstairs, to her room. Packing up her stuff seemed to be the next best thing to do, but instead she had put a collection of various locking and protective charms onto the door to her room and moved back to her reading. Before going to sleep, she added several Waking charms to the door, just in case, and put out the lights...

*****

Being woken up in the middle of the night was not the most pleasant feeling Hermione ever experienced, and the fact that someone was breaking down the door (although the yells of pain and swearings coming from beyond it denoted the fact that her traps were effective enough) did little to help that bad spirit of hers.

She quickly jumped up from the bed, hastily pulling off the nightgown and, shivering as the cold night air touched her exposed skin, dressed up - pulling on the prepared-in-advance undershirt, breeches, shirt and jacket, now looking like some kind of a thief, although no thieves have hair that long and bushy.

Having done all this and scooping up the already-gathered bag, she jumped out of the window. Second floor was not a major threat to her, especially since there was a tent right under her window, so she landed quite softly and made her escape.

*****

This was slowly turning into some kind of a sick joke, or worse. For the last three weeks, since she got into this world, she was running. Running from soldiers, running from mages, running from shadows and bright lights, she was feeling horrendously paranoid, although she picked up quite a bunch of new spells, though the tendencies of this world (or, more precisely, her fate in this world) had made it so that most of those were made for combat and the like.

She was running, lying, stealing (though she kept telling herself that this was done for an Ultimate Purpose - Survival!) a bit and had finally found refuge from the persecutions of the law in a rather unlikely place - it so turned out that people involved with the Guild of Necromancers were in no way followed, for they had to pass such a rigorous testing and the like that no criminal on the run ever could get in.

Hermione, on the other hand, used a bit of common trickery, her own wits, and the rest of the things that had let the Muggle-born girl survive so long in this unfriendly world on her own...

*****

"Name?" the official dressed in black robes, a crest in the shape of a skull with its mouth wide open engraved onto the clasp that held the robes closed.

"Hermione Granger..."

"Nationality?"

"Narret-Daed mix."

"Reason to join the Forces of the Undying?"

"Seeking peace from the chaos of life within the order of death."

The rest went on in a bit more of wild Q and A, but finally it seemed that there was no problem with anything at all, and soon Hermione received her very own set of black robes with the crest of the Forces of the Undying, as the non-Necromancer wizards in the servitude of the Guild were called, and all the necessary papers. Since there was not much people willing to sign up, her offer was gladly accepted, and she was granted a place to live - even if it was in a temple devoted to the unlife.

Her job was quite simple, really - she was chosen into the Caravan Guard, as the Guild had Caravans of the Dead rolling all over the Continent of the North - for the simplest reason of delivering the dead and their possessions to their homelands or wherever they had denoted the will to be laid to eternal rest.

The Guard had a simple task - protecting the dead and their things (such as clothes, gold and everything else they were to be delivered or buried with) on their way from wherever the person died to wherever he or she was to be taken.

She had logically concluded that since this job had a lot of travelling involved with it, she could surely find some information about the whereabouts of the others...