A/N - Infodump chapter, the next one as well.
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Arctic[2000]
––Damian Hawthorne–
He flew in the middle of an ice storm, with ice spikes the size of people hurtling across the sky, crashing into an invisible barrier around his body as he looked straight below, at the gaping maw with streaks of blue mixed in, with barely restrained excitement in his eyes.
It had been months since his sensors recorded an anomaly in this region, something that he catalogued and put on the back burner because magical anomalies, especially in areas with strong natural distortions, were a dime a dozen, with no special data coming out of it.
BUT this? This was completely different, and he wouldn't have even known about it had it not been for the latest patch he installed in his satellite network, allowing him to probe even deeper into the planet in search of magical anomalies.
He did sacrifice some accuracy when it came to pinpointing individual magical signatures, but it would all be worth it if he could get to the bottom of this absolutely horrifying magical storm, the strongest of its kind, at least on the planet.
He was sure that there were plenty of alternate dimensions with far harsher conditions than this.
He wouldn't even know what he would do with the corpse of a real life Celestial, but the Mad Scientist tendencies within him absolutely refused to listen to the avatar of reason, slaughtering it wholesale before ordering him to focus on this and this only for the past couple of weeks.
There were other things he wanted done before he had to fight an uphill battle regarding his formal magical education, but once he got the itch of exploring this place, he just could not focus on anything else, even withCalm Mind active at moderate levels.
It had taken him almost three months before he figured out that being under that enchantment for the majority of his time awake was not a healthy thing, leading to a pretty ugly period of recovery where he had to physically restring his body for at least half the day to stop himself from activating Calm Mind to simplify the deluge of thoughts his mind churned out every second.
He was every bit addicted to that enchantment and he was very thankful that he was able to identify the problem early on and address it effectively. The scars on his body, the ones that did not heal because of the magical residue in them, spoke volumes about the length he was willing to go to not become an addict.
With a sigh, he began descending into the vortex, streaks of lightning and ice as tough as steel peppering his shield with ever increasing intensity, as if recognising his existence and trying to stop him from entering.
He smirked at that, "Cute."
Strong Magical interference zones.
He'd read about them in the London Sanctum Library, since he was not allowed in Kamar Taj before he finished his formal wizarding education and obtained the equivalent of a graduate degree, about them.
Areas with magic that twisted the already faint laws of magic, zapping and ripping apart anything that tried to make sense of the chaotic magic inside it. It was dangerous enough to even come near them, because the magical interference was something that was condensed in the center, but the edges of it were dangerous due to the faint warping of natural order that happened, creating zones that were practically inhospitable.
All of that was something that deterred even strong adult wizards from venturing into them, and only experienced Curse Breakers, with entire teams chock-full of experience exploring them, came near them.
After all, where there was danger, there was also treasure.
Ancient Ruins. Places full of magical stuff, predating human civilisation, housing magic, technology, or even Magi-Tech far beyond Earth's current progression, just ripe for taking.
Well, his sensors had not been able to map anything resembling a pocket space so far, but he was not here for that anyway. He was here for the Celestial, which was probably why he was being pushed so far.
Any remnant energies must have mixed further in with the storm, creating an entirely new classification of difficulty for him.
He winced as a particularly deadly lance of electricity struck his shield, creating a chain reaction that just filled his vision with blue and white, the shield actually rippling with bubbles as layers of it were torn apart, only for newer layers to replace them at record-breaking speeds.
While he was connected to the shield enchantment and could accurately direct its location, size, and shape, he was not powering it, not directly anyway. The only reason he even dared to do this, despite all his projections telling him otherwise, was one thing and one thing only.
His ~PRECIOUS~ so to speak.
It looked hideous on him, a sphere the size of a volleyball, stuck to his chest, kept in place by a number of harnesses, all glowing with yellow runes, as the ball made up of Vibranium glowed in blue and purple runs, pulsing faintly as it provided the ridiculous amount of energy required to power this barrier.
See, in the first few months of him making his own workspace, with a little help from the structure knowledge that he finally got access to, from the London Sanctum Library, he had been reminded of this absolutely magical substance used to justify a lot of magical and scientific bullshit, and had a bright idea of procuring some for himself.
Being the paranoid yet greedy little shit that he was, he outright discarded both Wakanda and Talokan, both containing high amounts of vibranium that were very hard to reach and frankly, not worth the effort.
So, he did the next best thing. He began looking for the Vibranium outside of Wakanda's hands. Monitored? Yes. But they did not have absolute control over Vibranium artifacts placed in the biggest exhibition of stolen stuff in the world.
British Museums.
It had been child's play to sneak back into London, wander through two different Museums before he finally got a credible lead on Vibranium. The time period, as well as the ruling party matched with a particular axe he found in a sealed glass visual.
The appearance matched roughly with what he could remember from his past life, which led to a very tense but short heist, resulting in nothing but a short newspaper article the next day, and him coming into possession of refined vibranium.
Turning that into this sphere was a headache and a half, something that required him to exhaust all his options, but the finished product? It was well worth it.
A ball of pure vibranium, containing a small nuclear bomb that went off, containing all the fallout, and then keeping that energy stored. It was all thermal energy, and he had devised enchantments capable of turning heat into magic years ago, creating a ridiculously inefficient heat to magic converter.
He had another one of these spheres back at home, running his base, powering all the enchantments he could create, allowing him to bask in the absolute safety of his home as he could create ridiculous, over the top safety wards, not caring about power consumption at all.
That sphere was tanking all the magical hits of this place, with a backup enchantment on his clothing that was hardcoded to just blast him out of here the moment a foreign magical signature enters his body.
It would be messy, and he might lose a few organs, but once he was out of the interference zone, he could just teleport back home, in a vat of fluid designed to keep him alive and contact all his emergency contacts, which, sadly, only had Kamar Taj for now.
So, he went deeper and deeper into the storm, his altitude meter, sadly, not working due to the interference as he found the only source of light in this place being the strikes of energy continuously hitting his shields.
The shield was actually acting as a lightning rod for all the chaotic energy in this place, rapidly increasing the drain on the sphere, but he should be fine. Unless a city or country breaking attack hits him, the sphere and the enchantments should be perfectly capable of keeping him safe.
Despite knowing that, he still felt unease building up in him as he continued to move underground, with the magical backlash only increasing, with no signs of the bottom of this place.
Some part of his mind, one that was still nursing wounds from the absolute thrashing it got from the MAD SCIENTIST part of his mind, whispered to him, bitterly, that he should have just consulted the Ancient One and Kamar Taj about this because it could absolutely turn out to be way above his pay grade.
To that, he just shrugged and punted that part of his mind deeper and locked it the f*ck down because he was not going to be subservient or dependent on the Ancient One or Kamar Taj. That would just stifle his growth, and growth did not come without taking risks.
Granted, as far as risks went, this one was pretty high up on the list but still, the rewards would(theoretically) outweigh the benefits.
Hopefully.
Now, when would this damn hole stop?!
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