Runic Adventure PV Closed

Luna watched in amazement as Professor Ayers moved the runes with her hand. Could she do magic both without a wand and incantation? It seemed to defy everything she had learned about magic so far, so she took a mental note to research more about this later, after the conclusion of this adventure. But even more noteworthy was the fact that she was correct about the simple nature of the puzzle. This was deeply satisfying to the young girl. The flames flickered in her amber eyes as they watched the wall disappear. So that was how runes granted passage, a magical doorway.  

Beyond that doorway was an all-consuming darkness though. It was almost as if the darkness itself was a solid mist, congealing to block any attempts of light to penetrate it. The realization of how ancient these dungeons were hit Luna at that point, as well as a slight chill. A tinge of fear spread down her back, causing her to shudder a little. She wasn't afraid of the dark by any means, but this was no ordinary darkness, and her sense of caution was heightened as a result. 

Luna heeded the Professor, withdrawing her white wand into her ready grip. She made her swift movement, her airy voice softly exhaling "Lumos", and watched as the tip of the wand begin it's soft glow, expelling the shadows in her immediate vicinity. But just in her personal surroundings, for the darkness resisted the intrusion of the wand light. Luna reached forward with her free hand, grasping onto Professor Ayers, ready for the next challenge, and doing her best to hold back the mounting fear.

As they arrived at wherever the Professor was taking them, Luna wished she could see better, curious to her surroundings. Her wish would be granted in short time, little to her knowledge. She closed in on the rune as asked, holding her wand close to amplify the light. The rune became visible to her. It reminded her of a butterfly in its shape. As the Professor gave more information Luna listened with rapt attention. Runes, and understanding them, were fundamental to her ideal career upon graduation. It was the entire reason she was on this trip. A headstart on her peers. Should they even take the class.

Her first spell rune. She hadn't even known there were spell runes. She did her best to dedicate it to memory as soon as possible. Maybe it would be important later, maybe not, but she'd rather gamble with the former. 

As the Professor touched her wand to the rune, it began to light up in the same glow as that of their wand tips. Her eyes widened in amazement as the light spread from rune to rune, slowly radiating the light and casting back the shadows of the entire room. Due to the light coming from all sides, even their own shadows were banished as well. Luna had seen many things in her life, but the glow of the runes was incredible, like nothing she'd ever experienced before. 

But then her perception began to kick in fairly quickly. The way back was gone. Or rather the way they had come in was gone, and perhaps they were never one and the same? Additionally, there was an unknown alter in the center, completely unlit, marking it an anomaly in the now bright room. Luna had a drive to approach the altar, but held back, deciding to cede to the Professor. Besides, if the professor didn't prompt them first, she was sure one of her companions would likely do it anyway. She hedged her bets on the lone boy in the group. 

Parcel scratched the scar on his chin gingerly while a sheepish smile spread across his face. He didn’t expect his “nurse” theory to be correct, but then again, it would have been nice if he was correct, it’s kind of embarrassing to overthink stuff.

Embarrassment was soon forgotten as Parcel watched the professor touch the stones, rearranging the runes into their proper places. It almost reminded him of the way to Diagon Alley, behind the Leaky Cauldron.
Parcel gulped as the wall in front of them vanished, leaving a darkness where the wall had been. The darkness was so complete that Parcel almost thought it was a solid black mass. He didn’t take his eyes away from it before he heard the Professors voice.

Nodding at her instructions, Parcel pulled out his wand. “Lumos” he said in a low but excited voice. As Parcel’s wand lighted up, one of the girls had already gripped hold of the professor and was slowly moving into the room. Parcel sighed, would he… would he have to touch the girl? Couldn’t he just follow them really closely without holding onto anyone? Ugh, he didn’t have a choice it seemed, because the girl was already moving. As lightly as possible, Parcel pinched the clothing on Luna’s shoulder. Making a grimace, Parcel started walking while holding onto the girl in front of him, looking remarkably much like how he would look if he were taking a pair of particularly stinky socks to the laundry basket.

But stinky girls were soon forgot as they stopped in front of a new rune, barely visible in the light of their wands. Parcel looked up at the flower pattern carved in the wall as he listened to the professor’s explanation. He knew runes were an important part of magic, he had already learned that in transfiguration, but could runes do magic themselves!? Or if they had magic power inserted into them? This was entirely new information to Parcel, and it made him interested in studying it more, it had to be useful for an aspiring adventurer!

Parcel let out an audible gasp as the professor made the rune glow, and the light spread across the walls of the room. He turned around, letting go of his grip on the girl that had walked in front of him as he followed the edge of the light that was spreading across the previously dark room’s walls.

He didn’t notice, or didn’t care about the lack of an exit, the dazzling display of runes had taken up all his processing power. After the light seemed to have stopped spreading, Parcel finally noticed something in the middle of the room. It looked like a big slab of rock? The light did not seem to spread there, but he could barely make out something that looked like carvings on the rock’s surface.

With the curiosity of a 12-year-old boy taking the better of him, Parcel forgot what the professor had said about sticking together as he started walking towards the alter. Stretching out his hand in an attempt to touch it.

Runes! How simple, and how clever Ami felt when she realized that she, indeed, had figured out the puzzle correctly. Mentally, she preened and congratulated herself, before moving on with the group and Professor Ayers.

The Wand-Lighting spell was one the Hufflepuff was all too familiar with- after all, she had attended the slightly-terrifying Lock-In, where it had been essential to know and master that spell. Without hesitation, she drew her wand, muttering "Lumos," and flicking her wand in the appropriate motion. 

Holding onto one another seemed rather childish, in Ami's opinion, and she had no fear of the dark whatsoever. Luna seemed completely fine with grabbing hold of Professor Ayers, while Parcel gingerly touched Luna's shoulder. Ami trailed a few paces behind the group, still staying close while not holding on to anyone.

The information Professor Ayers provided about the Runes were really quite contradictory to the history behind the spell she had learned in Professor Henley's class, although that was most likely her just overthinking things. According to her Charms notes, the spell had been invented in the 18th century, while the rune had taken its name ages before. Did wizards simply name the runes once they had developed a spell for it? That seemed to be the case.

Ami's eyes widened in astonishment as the rune began to cast light throughout the room, brighter than any of their poor beginner-level casting abilities could muster. If these runes worked so much easier than wands and casting, where wizards were more likely to fail, why did wizards still use runes in modern day life? Imagine just have your ceiling light be the Lumos Rune- how bright your room would be!

Looking around the room, the girl was tempted to reach out and run her fingers along the numerous runes etched into the stone walls of the room. Common sense prevailed, however, and she shoved her hands into her pockets to prevent any unheeded urges.

She watched skeptically as Parcel stepped forward, to the altar, sticking out his hand to prod it curiously. How dumb could he be? "Parcel, what are you doing?" she said with a small laugh, shaking her head at his actions. "How can you be so sure that won't burn your arm off?"

Stepping forward, she joined him at the altar, although she made no move to make eye contact with him. The runes covering the altar were entrancing, almost hypnotic, in a way. The designs were simple yet intricate, things that she could see herself drawing on the walls of her room- like doodles, almost. How could simple little drawings possibly hold so much power?

Adelaide enjoyed watching the children's varied looks of amazement as they watched the room light up before them. It was a simple and humbling pleasure to watch magic have such an effect of a human. One didn't see such bewilderment in the faces of young witches and wizards now a days, when they were so easily exposed to magic from a young age.

Adelaide would laugh out loud as she listened to Ami scold Parcel. "Well, yes, Miss Ami. It is always a good idea to proceed with caution - especially in a magical setting. However, in this particular instance, Parcel has nothing to fear from the altar before him." She would nod and motion for the lone boy to continue if he wished. If he did so, his hand would simply come into contact and rest on, cold, hard, smooth stone.

She walked up towards the altar with the children. Their curiousity drew them to the right place, the altar would be the focal point of today's adventure. It seemed a simple peice of masonry, but it held much to yet behold.

The children, as they examined it, would see that the altar, too, was covered in existing runes. However these runes were exclusively alphabetical, which the students may be able to recognize, as well as numerical runes, which they probably have not been exposed to yet. Scenic runes, like the previously seen Lumos rune, would be absent. These runes as well were not lit up like those on the walls surrounding them and we only present on the sides of the altar, leaving the flat top, smooth and blank.

"Alrighty, kiddos, gather 'round" She would command, if they were not gathered already. "Time for a history lesson." She began, referancing the runes on the later before them. "As you may have guessed, runes are not as widely used as they were in the past, hence the name of my class being the history of ancient runes. Well, in ancient times runes were used and as time progressed they were replaced with wands, for many reasons, mainly convenience. Before then, however, runes were created for each spell used. An altar like this was used as a crafting space to design runes for a certain beely developed spell. Nearly all scenic spells, like the Lumos rune, are created from a combination of numerical and/or alphabetical runes. Hence why this work table only has those runes. A crafter could either find the runes they wanted on the alter and drag it to the workspace on top to combine with other they have placed. She would demonstrate this by touching a rune near her on the altars side, which happened to be the letter G, and drag it with her finger tips, much like she did with the RUNES puzzle on the door, to the top of the altar. There is would replenish itself on the side, as well as stay on the workspace of the altar. Then, to move it, she would simply take it and drag it off the side, where it would disappear.

She continued, "Or, one can simply draw runes on the top with their fingers if they have them memorized." Again, she would demonstrate this by taking a finger tip and drawing her rune, she would quickly draw the runes for the letters that spelled AYERS, and then swipe her hand over them after a few seconds so the children could get a glimpse, to create a blank space once again.

"Now, we won't be making any new spells today, as that is an extremely complicated process, but we can play with this altar as much as we want! Feel free to drag or draw runes on here, nothing with harm it or you, so don't worry. If you have questions, I have answers so feel free. After you get a bit of a feel for the altar, I have another activity to explore. But for now, go crazy! She instructed, and then took a small step back so the children could access the runes near her, but still close enough to see their creations.

Luna watched on, letting Parcel and Ami check out the alter. Her bet that the Gryffindor would be unable to resist proved correct. The Hufflepuff girl had also approached, after scolding the boy of course, satisfying Luna that all was safe. This was all followed by further confirmation in the form of an assurance by Professor Ayers. The professor moved to the altar herself, and Luna followed behind, arriving to look at it from a closer angle.

The altar was was simple, made of carved stone. It was covered in runes. The letters were easy enough to identify, but others were not known to the young girl. Luna made a mental note, adding yet again more, to research more about runes later. 

Luna listened with rapt attention as the explanation was given on the nature of the altar. Her eyes tracked the professor's hand as she demonstrated the way it worked, and those same eyes widened when she heard that they could do it themselves. 

What to make though? Just simple English words? Should she employ her basic knowledge of Latin? Maybe start simple. The room was bright, so she decided to think of its opposition to see what it may look like. Moving the point of her finger carefully, she spelled out nox in the appropriate runic characters. Then next to it she wrote out umbra. The effects were amazing to the girl, and she let out a childish giggle, which was completely out of character for the normally reserved adolescent. Finally she made her own name, Luna, and proceeded to look up to see what the others were doing.

Luna, the Ravenclaw who held back from the alter at first, seemed bravest out of the group to begin playing around with the altar. The children themselves did not have the skill or the knowledge to really do anything remarkable with the altar, but Adelaide was enormously curious to see what their minds came up with.

The Ravenclaw child surprised and delighted Miss Ayers by drawing attention to Lumos and the light that had been the pinnacle of the adventure so far. The girl continued with the theme and spelled out the incantation for Lumos' opposite, Nox, or the Wandlight Extinguishing charm, the counter to the Lumos charm.

Of course, the children would not know the scenic rune for the charm, and that was understandable, and so spelling instead of drawing was a great alternative. The girl followed with a fantastic example of her Latin knowledge with the Latin word for Shadow, following, again, with the theme, and finally with a runic spelling of her own name.

For a beginning Second Year, Adelaide was impressed with the child's knowledge and memorization of the runic alphabet. She did not seem to hesitant with her letter choices, and seemed to translate them rather well. She took a mental note to praise the transfiguration teacher for his teachings at a later date. If all her future students studied the runic alphabet as well as Luna, Adelaide would have a much eaiser time attempting to teach the children. Her current students were not as well versed when they came to her as this Ravenclaw appeared to be.

Extremely delighted with Luna's performance, Adelaide wanted to reward the child. Young witches and wizards always seemed fascinated with new magic, and so the Runes teacher decided to demonstrate the ability of the altar, as well as give some life to Luna's creations. All three still sat engraved into the stone, and although Adelaide could not work with Luna's name nor the Latin word, she could work with Nox. Stepping in she wiped away the other two spellings, hoping she did not offend the girl, she gave her an encouraging smile. Then she motioned her wand a bit and the Nox spelling swirled into a new rune.



"This is the rune for Nox, as Luna so perfectly spelled in Runic. Now watch." She commanded as she touched her still Lumos lighted wand to the Nox rune. Immediately, the light in her wand went out, and within a second later, the entire room, previously lit but Lumos via the engraved wall runes, went black. It took just a moment for Adelaide's Dhampir eyes to adjust, as well as a moment for suspense to kick in, before Adelaide was able to redraw the Lumos rune on the alter, light her wand once again, touch it to the rune and relight the room.

She grinned at the students around her. Even still the magic and wonder of runes still amazed even herself, and she hoped her amazement spread to the little ones as well. "Amazing." She breathed, the sighed. "Alright then, your turn." She continued, gesturing towards the remaining children.

Ami was, well, extremely out of her depth at this point. Taking out the alphabet of the ancient runes as Professor Ayers explained the altar and its non-lethal properties, the Hufflepuff let her eyes wander along the runes, identifying the letters with help from the cheat sheet. Taking a small step backward, Ami walked a circle around the altar in the center as the Ancient Runes professor spoke, trying to draw inspiration for their next task from the letters floating around.

Think, Ami, think! She was a writer, but one with a writer's block. Attention flicking between the cheat sheet and the altar, she watched as Luna spelled out multiple words on the altar without any hesitation whatsoever. Nox, umbra, and Luna. A spell, a word unknown to her, and a name. She had made it look so easy, like she had just popped out of her mother's womb babbling ancient runes.

Lucky.

Blinking slightly in the darkness that enveloped them soon after, Ami's mind was blown at the power those runes held. More power than her thin, 12-year-old frame could ever hope to hold. Stepping forward to the altar as Professor Ayers gestured towards herself and Parcel, Ami's hand hovered over the runes in the table. Think, think, think...

Luna had done three words, but only the spell had worked. Well, that didn't mean she couldn't have at least a little bit of fun, right? Eyes darting wildly between the cheat sheet and the altar, Ami's thin fingers dragged out the letters to a spell she had only read about- orchideous, the word spelled out. The flower conjuring spell she had seen in her Transfiguration textbook, one that she didn't quite know how to cast yet. It would be a wonderful learning experience to see it performed in person. 

Her hands becoming more confident, Ami drew back to her own roots and home to spell out her other word- maldecir, a Spanish word. Growing up with Thomas had meant learning Spanish to appease his mother and other assorted friends, and she had done so quite willingly. Maldecir was a verb infinitive, which could then be conjugated to fit the pronoun. To curse, it meant- both the magical cursing and the bad-word-don't-say-this-in-front-of-your-mother cursing. Yo maldigo. Tú maldices. Ella maldice. Nosotros maldicionamos. La maldición. 

Parcel looked on in amazement as Luna the Ravenclaw girl started picking out runes on the table. She was the last one to approach and the first to start working. Very much like a Ravenclaw stereotype, Parcel thought.

The professor helped with the completion of the rune, and poof, the room went dark. A lot of kids might feel frightened by the darkness, or only consoled by the fact that a professor was with them. But to the sudden darkness, Parcel didn’t even flinch. Perhaps he had been hardened by the numerous cave and night trips Parcel had done with his grandfather, eager to show him some of the wizarding world and its magical creatures, or maybe Parcel was just an odd child, but the darkness did not scare him.

The light came back almost as fast as it went out, snaking itself back up the walls and ceiling. With saucer like eyes, Parcel looked at the display again, its weird how entertaining light can be when it wants to.

While Parcel was lost in the simple beauty of the light, Ami decided to approach the stone slab. When he noticed her moving about, Parcel turned his attention away from the glimmer and looked over on Ami with interest. She didn’t speak much, but by the glint in her eye, Parcel guessed she worked with a plan.

When she seemed to be done, Parcel decided to give it a go. “Um, you want us to go up one at a time or can we do it at the same time?”
Parcel didn’t really wait for an answer before he walked up to the altar. He looked down on his cheat sheet. Although he knew the runes it felt like extra comfort to look at them. Should he do something he had read about before? Try a spell he had found interesting?
He reached for a rune he recognized- but stopped himself.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to try something new?” Parcel thought to himself. He was a child of great curiosity after all, what happened if he simply tried to mash runes together, could he be lucky and see a spell he hadn’t read about before? After all, he didn’t know many spells except the ones they taught in his first year and the normal spells he had seen his parents do around the house, the ones he knew but couldn’t preform.

“Can we put this rune here” Parcel pointed to a squiggly rune on the side “together with this one?” Parcel again pointed to a rune, this one closer to the center, but none of them familiar to him.

Ami seemed a bit more hesitant about the altar before her. That was understandable. As newly graduated second years they had very little Runic experience, and that was just fine. This whole adventure was to introduce the kids to Runes and show them how fun, useful and powerful they could be.

To her pleasure, the young redheaded came up with something quite beautiful. After a solid glance as the altar Ami spelled out a spell that Adelaide remembered always having difficulty spelling herself when she was young and in school. But it was a beautiful spell that could be used in many different ways. Orchideous was a spell that conjured flowers. The type, size amount and other aspects could determined by the caster and their ability and knowledge of the spell. In masters it could be an extraordinary conjuration.

Ami continued with her spelling to reveal quite an interesting fact about the girl. Adelaide spoke Spanish fluently and therefore instantly recognized the conjugation -maldecir. The Professor understood what the little one was attempting to do, and it was quite a good idea, she had to commend the girl. "Well, Ami, that is very clever. Although a lot of spells and incantations utilize different languages from Latin to German, this spell, unfortunately, would not work with this Spanish addition." She lectured. Despite this, she still wanted to give the kids a show.

And so she raised her wand and touched it to the word Ami spelled. In a motion the word swirled and changed into the Orchideous rune.



With another touch she activated the rune with her magic. Within moments bright yellow orchids sprouted from the base of the altar, quickly they spread, adding blues and purples to the mix, snaking around the student's ankles and towards the walls. Bright green leaves peaked out between the colorful petals. The room basked in the blue light of the Lumos charm as it bounced off the flowers at their feet. If they tried to move the flowers would part to make room, and fill in the gaps left behind.

"Orchideous actually stems from Latin roots. The word for the orchid plant family in Latin is Orchideae, and therefore Orchideous. Where did you learn Spanish, Miss Ami?" She wondered.

Adelaide then peered at the boy in the group. For someone who acted so brave he certainly was hesitant. He had some questions that Adelaide swiftly answered, "This altar, which is officially called a Legend, by the way, is used as your peers and I have shown, to combine basic runes to make entirely new ones. So yes, you can attempt to combine any runes you wish, but the combinations may or may not work.

She stepped back, giving the boy some space to move around and get a good look. She was very curious what he would come up with, if anything.