Having survived the agonizing induction into the cosmic library and successfully executed the elemental Levitation Charm, Tierra knew she had achieved a critical mass of competence. She couldn't afford to waste a single precious moment in the hostile familiarity of the orphanage.
Her first task was logistical. Tierra rummaged through the lower drawers of Merlin's plain wooden desk, locating a slightly heavy, gray object that felt rough and cold to the touch. It was a tool, but one of immense, forgotten power—a flat, irregularly shaped stone piece, a fragment of the Sacred Stone of Avalon. As described in Merlin's final scroll, this was the ancient Celtic keystone, used by druids to carve their connection to nature into their very being. For Tierra, it was simply a dense, unbreakable wedge.
With the stone clutched in her hand, she focused on the bone ring, reciting the harsh, guttural cipher that Merlin had hidden within its carved runes.
"Th'mere'el-eas gol'la ei'lin..."
This time, the transit was dramatically different. The initial journey had been a soul-shattering cataclysm of disorientation and nausea. Now, having successfully channeled her own magical power and, more importantly, survived the psychic intimacy with the Outer Gods, her return was smoother.
The world still dissolved into a sickening rush, but the experience was mercifully brief, a sharp, momentary vertigo rather than a violent expulsion of reality. She materialized with only a single, deep gasp, finding herself back in the mold-caked, freezing laundry room.
The air in the storage room hit her like a punch: stale, dusty, and saturated with the cloying odor of damp wool and institutional disinfectant. It was a mundane prison compared to the cosmic terror she had just left, yet the contrast was almost as jarring.
"Tierra" had been locked in this small hell around 9:30 p.m. She gauged the atmosphere now—the silence was absolute, save for the slow, rhythmic drip-drip-drip of a leaky pipe. A sliver of pale, ethereal blue light was seeping in through the warped crack at the bottom of the laundry room door. It was the liminal light of a false dawn, the hour before the sun truly cleared the horizon. Four or five in the morning, at most. She was running out of time.
Her plan was simple, brutal, and necessary.
Tierra crouched, holding the Avalonian Stone—the keystone of an ancient kingdom—like a crude hammer. The lock mechanism of the utility room was old, rusted, and cheaply made, barely an impediment. She positioned the stone against the metal plate housing the lock cylinder.
She raised the stone, her hand steady despite the exhaustion, and struck.
Once. The sound, amplified in the dead quiet of the sleeping building, was a deafening, metallic CLANK that seemed to rattle the very foundations of the orphanage. Tierra froze, listening for movement—a cough, a creaking floorboard, the heavy tread of a nun. Silence. The fear of being caught was a hot coil in her stomach, but she pressed on.
Twice. The wood around the strike plate splintered and groaned, giving way in a high, agonizing squeal.
Three times. With a final, decisive CRACK, the rotten wood gave up completely. The metal lock plate sheared free, hanging uselessly on the door jamb by a single screw.
The door was now free. Tierra gripped the handle, pulled the door inward with excruciating slowness, and slipped out into the dimly lit, ice-cold hallway.
The old grandfather clock in the reception hall downstairs confirmed the time: 4:26 AM. Perfect. The nuns were either asleep or engaged in their early-morning prayers, and the hundreds of orphans were still safely cocooned in their dormitories. It was time for her departure.
I have to leave, the thought hammered in her mind, overriding the powerful, childish urge to seek shelter.
The orphanage offered restriction, but also survival. It offered food, warmth, and a roof. Leaving meant immediate, grinding poverty and the dangers of the street. But staying meant certain disaster.
A raw, untrained magical apprentice, without a proper focus or teacher, was an accident waiting to happen. The Levitation Charm had nearly short-circuited her mind. A stronger, more uncontrolled burst—perhaps the accidental activation of the Cursed Worm or the soul-searing Lord of the Star Sea ability—could lead to an incident far worse than a broken cabinet.
The orphanage is poorly maintained, she thought, surveying the peeling paint and cracked plaster. A fire, a collapse, a catastrophic magical feedback loop... I cannot risk hundreds of lives, even if they were the lives of my bullies, just to have a bed to sleep in.
Her departure, therefore, was not selfish abandonment, but a brutal necessity. She needed absolute isolation to practice, to channel, and to transform. In her past life, she had been comfortable, sheltered, and privileged.
Now, she was a ten-year-old immigrant orphan in 1980s London. Her knowledge base was vast, but her resources were non-existent. Without the phenomenal, world-bending power of magic, she would be trapped, unable to pay the exorbitant fees for even a mediocre state university, let alone fund the bio-engineering research she truly desired.
She had chosen the extraordinary path, however perilous. There could be no construction without destruction; no seeking the truth of the universe without sacrificing the comfortable lie of normalcy.
She had secured her logistics. The library, now parked tens of thousands of light-years away on an Earth-like world, served as a perfectly safe, temperature-controlled storage unit and private laboratory. She had also confirmed the existence of other precious items in Merlin's desk, artifacts that would be essential for her growth:
The Failed Philosopher's Stone: A blood-red gem, a chaotic, unstable relic of Merlin's own desperate, failed attempt at immortality. It wasn't the perfect, life-extending stone of legend, but it was a conduit of immense, raw alchemical power.
The Avalonian Staff: A thick, wooden staff, almost half her height, cut from the branch of a Celtic sacred tree. It was Merlin's first focus, now discarded but still a potent magical anchor.
Merlin's Treasure: Most practically, she had located three heavy cowhide pouches filled with antique gold, silver, and copper coins. These were authentic currency from the 11th and 12th centuries and the early printing eras—priceless artifacts that, when pawned, would provide her with substantial, necessary capital. She calculated the haul would be enough to sustain her for at least a year, buying her the precious time she needed.
Tierra crept into the dark dormitory, the silence broken only by the synchronized, shallow breathing of the sleeping boys. She moved with the predatory grace of someone who understood her life was now a high-stakes adventure, blending scientific precision with primal necessity.
She quietly gathered her few possessions: the thin, threadbare clothing, the meager notebooks and pencils rationed by the orphanage, and her tattered bedding. Each item was sent, piece by piece, via the Space Gate Ring to the alien library for temporary storage.
Her final act in the dormitory was the darkest.
She located the bed of one of her worst bullies—a tall, mean-spirited boy named Richard. He was snoring heavily, his mouth slightly open. Tierra reached into the pocket of her own stolen trousers and pulled out the desiccated black thread: the Cursed Worm she had transferred her initial psychic trauma into.
She lowered her hand over the sleeping boy. The transfer was not conscious magic, but a raw, biological imperative of the Outer God's gift. As the black thread detached and settled onto the boy's exposed wrist, it vanished. The boy shifted slightly, his face twitching in a brief, unconscious grimace, absorbing the accumulated illness, pain, and psychic exhaustion of Tierra's death and rebirth.
Survival demands a cost, she justified, her expression cold and flat. She hadn't harmed him; she had simply transferred a liability.
Next, she moved silently through the room, her knowledge of the dormitory layout—learned through months of observing her tormentors—proving invaluable. The bullies were petty thieves and hoarded their meager earnings. She knew where Richard kept his meager stash: under the loose floorboard beneath his locker. She knew where another boy kept his stolen shillings: tucked into the worn soles of his best shoes.
It was a cold, efficient raid. She found a total of forty pounds in various hidden spots. It was a paltry sum for a normal adult, but to a six-year-old on the run, it was a lifeline, enough to get her to a safe location and begin the process of liquidating Merlin's treasures.
The urgency to leave became overwhelming. Merlin's notes had been very clear: the strange stone shielding the library was imperfect. When an intelligent being sleeps, their spiritual powers are at their most active, their connection to the Outer Gods most sensitive.
Having already established a terrifying, involuntary link through the Chinese scripture, she dared not risk falling asleep in the orphanage. She needed to be miles away, safe and alert, before succumbing to exhaustion.
Her belongings secured, her resources acquired, Tierra moved with finality. She stopped in the empty, cold kitchen for a loaf of day-old bread and a bottle of tepid milk, then walked toward the front entrance.
As she stepped out into the dim, smog-tinged London morning, she paused, looking back at the dilapidated stone building. Above the heavy, iron gate, barely visible in the weak light, was the rusted sign: WOOL'S ORPHANAGE.
A bitter, self-deprecating smile touched her lips. "From now on, I'll be a wandering wizard," she murmured. Her path was displacement, a nomadic existence that would break most adults. But she had been given a second chance, a dangerous, insane one, and she would not waste it.
With a final, decisive movement, she turned her back on the orphanage—the very birthplace of the darkest wizard in her adopted world's history, Tom Riddle—and walked toward the nearest bus stop.
The library's treasures were not yet enough. Money was the only true shield in the mundane world.
First, the pawn shop. Second, a decent meal. Third, a plan.
But first, she had one last, necessary act of theft to perform. As she walked past the church adjacent to the orphanage, she stopped. She took the gray Avalon Stone and, using it as a wedge, carefully pried open the poor box attached to the church wall. She "borrowed" a handful of coins—just enough for bus fare and her first meal, a loan she promised to repay ten times over.
It was a small, necessary sin. Utterly exhausted, physically and mentally, she needed calories and rest before the madness caught up.
The true adventure had begun.