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London
–Lucien Corven–
He sighed, looking once more at the note that had inexplicably appeared on his desk, right in between the last two items in his daily routine, checking through his personal inventory, and going through his workplace to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and no leakage of strange magic had occurred.
Tobias mocked him for that, but has been in the organisation long enough to know that eldritch magic worked best when people had their guards down, and what better way to get their guards down when in a place they visited daily and expected to be safe from sabotage?
It was not there when he left his desk and was present near the important document file, as if it had been forever and not placed at precisely the time he was not present. There was also the fact that none, not a single one of the security alarms had rung or even detected a slight disturbance in the area, not even the one tasked explicitly just to keep a record of items in the office, counting everything periodically so any disturbance that humans could not see, was detected by a ward that did not have a mind of its own to influence by the Mind Arts.
Not his personal tracking, security, or cursed spells on the table. Not the wards placed in the office by himself. Not the overarching ward structure of the department. Nothing caught the letter, which could only mean one thing. It was a letter from the Ancient One.
And it was.
Usually, getting direct instructions from the illustrious yet hidden leader of their organisation would have been a matter of honor, since it had been quite some time since the Ancient One had directly addressed one of them, leaving them with the instructions that she gave out years ago, with some very ominous undertones.
In this case, however, he truly did not know what he was expecting. Most certainly not a curt order to act as a portal chaperone for the newest criminal of Magical Britain, well, one that was not a proven member of the nobility, else how could the Ministry have moved so hastily against him?
With that morbid thought in his mind, he waited on the streets, right in front of a park that was closed for the night, with a sole streetlight keeping the gate illuminated on the other side. He was standing in front of a bus stop, with no bus on the way, waiting to be seen by the Giant Killer.
He was admittedly curious about the man who spooked Dumbledore into action, but the orders were clear, and he was supposed to be just as curt to him as the orders were to him. It had been just over half an hour since he came here, standing, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a desolate road, waiting for someone who was all but an international criminal.
Why? Because he had followed orders all his life, so what was one more? It was just so…vexing to follow the old orders, as if they were absolute in their ending.
Looking at past records, they might as well have been absolute and it had been a significant point of contention between his peers on whether to question them or not. It had never been done because the thought of doing so never entered their minds, but the–
He froze, the necklace on his neck heating up, as he spread out his senses, trying to pick up on whatever it was that his necklace was sensing, but somehow came up short. That was….
He had expected the Giant Killer to be proficient in magic and to be in possession of unique and powerful magic or else how could he garner the attention of someone like the Ancient One? But him escaping all his senses was impressive. No one, save for maybe Dumbledore when he used his vast repertoire of extinct magic and impressive relics, could escape his senses in Magical Britain.
He did not react outwardly, but he kept his senses peeled to look for something, becoming more impressed by the second as the necklace kept heating up, telling him that the threat was close by. It calculated threats based on the flavour of magic, intensity of magic, amount of magic, magic being used right now, where the magic was aimed at, proximity to the wielder of said magic, and more.
All of those factors came into play and are calculated by the necklace on the fly to function as a magical early warning system that had never failed him to date, so he was not going to start questioning it today.
After almost 5 minutes of the necklace reaching its highest state of alert, becoming uncomfortably warm, the air in front of him shimmered, revealing a vaguely humanoid shape, cloaked by magic.
It was only his decades of service in the organisation, seeing nightmare stuff, doing nightmare stuff, being inside nightmare stuff, that allowed him to not react beyond a slight narrowing of his eyes, as the humanoid shape revealed itself, to be a slightly short statured man.
His eyes mechanically noted all the details he could see, since his magical senses did not get much information aside from clear stealth spells being used.
The standard Kevlar armour, likely purchased illegally or stolen. That was all he could say through the thick purple haze before that too disappeared from his view, revealing the Giant Killer. His face was covered in a misty darkness that seemed to be coming from the cloak that reached an area where the mouth normally would be.
The split second where he saw the Kevlar was the only moment of visibility. Now, everything was covered in a purple haze, and the face seemed to be completely cloaked in a field of darkness.
All in all, a getup designed to intimidate people, whilst keeping a focus on overall stealth. He was sure that had it not been for the excellent stealth enchantments, the man could have crammed in way higher level defense stuff, while keeping the same size of the suit.
He blinked his eyes, realising that he was going into analysis mode that was common whenever a new product was placed in front of him, but now was not the time for that. Now was the time to follow the instructions to the T.
According to them….
Step 1: Wait for him to establish contact. Treat Subject as if a wary Mooncalf.
He could do that. Their ability to make fertiliser that could accelerate the growth of magical plants by a factor of 50 was extremely useful for them, especially since their department had a lot of magical species thought to be extinct by the rest of the magical world, safely stored away in a secured place.
He knew nothing of said secured place, save for its name and the fact that every single Unspeakable division on the planet dumped their findings of rare fauna and flora in that place, which was extremely well guarded and had managed to remain a secret for so long, despite having literal youth granting herbs in it.
Elysium.
"What are you doing here?" Finally, the man spoke, in a voice that was extremely gravelly and was certainly made by a voice modulator, likely created by someone who had no knowledge of how sound masking worked. That's the thing with the newbies. They know the magic part but were either too proud or too ignorant to learn about sound and how the muggles manipulate it without a lick of magic.
He resisted the urge to start lecturing the man on the fact that being good at magic was only one side of the coin when it came to good enchanting and making good, effective relics that could not be countered using basic principles that the other side could exploit if you did not have that in mind when making said relic.
Instead of replying, he did as was instructed.
Step 2: Show him the sling ring and inform him that you can help him. The Bald One has sent you.
He had to be openly gawking at that step for over a minute as the thought of the Ancient One being referred to as the Bald One was preposterous, by anyone, let alone herself. He vowed to make sure that this never got out, otherwise the image his peers had cultivated in their mind of their leader might shatter. Let this heresy end with him, and the Giant Killer, but nobody was going to believe him.
With a slow, careful gesture, he lifted his right hand's middle finger, which was not intentional, and he hoped the man did not take it that way, and showed him the sling ring. The bronze surface glinting off the headlight of a passing car, which did not react at all to them because of the wards cast around the bus stop.
He wanted to explain that he had lost feeling in his other fingers, and it was marginally better to use the one finger he could still use properly, but that would be a violation of the instructions, so he kept mum.
The reaction was immediate. The man jerked, as if stopping himself from reaching for it. Did he not know that sling rings aren't interchangeable?
He shrugged internally. Not his place to comment. After all, that was not included in the instructions. What was included however, did pain him physically to say.
"I am here to help you. I was sent by the….Bald One."
Oh, god, he was never going to forget this. If only he hadn't had anti memory tampering methods literally carved into his skull, he would have tried to obliviate himself.
A/N - Lucien Corven is an OC last mentioned in Ch.22, and he is a high ranking member of the Unspeakables Global Division and the leader of the Britain branch, working on the orders of the Ancient One.
Elysium, as a concept, has also been explained in the 13th chapter. So, go check that out for a refresher.
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