Get comfortable, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🔥 ✦ “By the way, Elias,” Dumbledore said, adjusting his spectacles.
His blue eyes held a thoughtful, searching light.
“Earlier, I saw you use a spell that seemed to take effect instantly.
May I ask what it was?” “A Sign,” Elias said.
“A magical combat technique developed by witchers.
Very useful in a fight.” He had no intention of hiding it.
Sometimes the best way to protect oneself was to show enough value that others thought twice before discarding you.
“Perhaps you could demonstrate it for me, Mr.
Vale?” Dumbledore asked.
“Perhaps we should find an open space first,” Elias said dryly.
“I am not sure using offensive magic in the Hospital Wing is a good idea.” He had no desire to burn the ward down with Igni and then face Madam Pomfrey’s wrath.
She had, after all, treated him rather well.
“Oh, of course,” Dumbledore said, plainly realizing the problem a moment too late.
“A more suitable venue would be wise.” After a polite exchange of goodnights, Dumbledore left him to rest.
“Witchers do not favor the complex incantations used by sorcerers,” Elias explained later.
“They prefer simple magic that can be released quickly with one hand in the middle of combat.
That magic is called a Sign.
Most Signs require focus and a simple hand gesture, and witchers use them to support a fast, close-range fighting style.” They stood in an empty Charms practice room.
Dumbledore, Professor Flitwick, and Snape had all come to watch.
The three professors regarded Elias with open curiosity, waiting for the demonstration.
Elias raised his left hand and traced a clean triangular symbol through the air.
A bright, heavy burst of flame erupted from his palm and slammed into a training dummy across the room.
Within moments, the dummy had been reduced to ash.
The simple, rapid release of such destructive magic left the watching professors visibly startled.
Elias was startled as well.
He knew perfectly well that witcher Signs had never been that powerful in his old world.
Was it the difference in ambient magic between worlds?
Had a creature from a thinner magical environment stepped into one saturated with power?
The emotional dampening caused by his mutations kept his expression steady, so the professors had no way to know the display had exceeded even his expectations.
To them, it looked like the Sign’s ordinary level of strength.
Elias did not correct the misunderstanding.
It was, after all, a very useful misunderstanding.
“That was Igni,” he said.
“An active Sign.
With enough power behind it, it projects flame strong enough to burn an enemy.” Snape remained where he was, cool and dark-robed.
Flitwick, by contrast, looked almost beside himself with excitement.
The diminutive professor’s part-goblin ancestry had never stopped him from becoming a formidable wizard.
He had earned outstanding marks in his O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, mastered charms, spells, and defensive magic, and become an accomplished duelist.
Yet even a dueling master was thrilled by the possibilities hidden in a witcher’s simple hand sign.
An ordinary wizard might only see wandless magic.
Flitwick, Dumbledore, and Snape saw something far more significant: another branch of spell development, one that might bypass the wand entirely.
If a spell similar to Incendio could be released through a simple Sign structure, could other spell models be adapted in the same way?
Flitwick was already leaning forward, eager to ask questions about the casting method, but Dumbledore gently held him back and motioned for Elias to continue.
Elias nodded and drew an inverted triangle with his left hand.
A pale golden shield bloomed around him in a smooth circle.
Quen, too, felt thicker and steadier than it ever had before.
“Quen,” Elias said.
“A defensive Sign.
It forms a magical shield around the witcher, protecting him for a short time by absorbing physical and magical damage.” He looked at the three professors.
“You may attack.
The Quen shield can withstand a certain amount of spell damage before its power is exhausted.” Snape struck first.
“Expelliarmus!” A thick, brilliant red jet shot toward Elias like lightning.
The instant it hit Quen, the shield flared hard, then dispersed the force across its entire surface until the Disarming Charm dissolved.
Snape’s brows tightened.
His spell had failed to break through.
Flitwick could not resist any longer.
With a quick movement of his wand, he sent Incendio at Elias.
Fierce flames wrapped around the shield, but inside Quen, Elias felt no heat at all.
The Sign distributed the spell’s force evenly and held.
When Flitwick lowered his wand, Elias stood unharmed within the golden shell.
The shield, however, had weakened.
Its color had dimmed, and its surface no longer looked quite so solid.
Flitwick and Snape tested it further with Reducto, Diffindo, and several other offensive spells.
They even used conjured projectiles to test how the shield handled physical impact.
Quen endured each attack, but by the end, cracks webbed across it and its glow had faded to a fragile yellow.
“Marvelous!” Flitwick cried, his nose pink with excitement.
“Professor Vale, the defensive capacity of Quen is extraordinary!” Elias moved on to the remaining Signs.
Aard was an active Sign, a burst of telekinetic force used to repel, stun, knock down, or even disarm opponents.
It was particularly useful when enemies tried to surround a witcher.
When Elias released it, the training dummy was hurled several yards backward and struck the wall hard enough to leave cracks in the stone.
Yrden was another active Sign, a magical trap placed on the ground.
It could slow enemies, inflict pain, make them bleed, or paralyze them within its field.
More importantly, it could force spectral and incorporeal creatures to manifest enough to be struck.
Snape tested Yrden personally.
The moment he stepped into the field, he felt the effect.
His body, thoughts, and even magic seemed to slow and stiffen.
According to Elias, many of Yrden’s harsher applications had not been used in the demonstration at all.
Axii came last.
It allowed a witcher to influence another mind, charm or control a target, or calm a frightened animal.
Unlike the others, Axii did not take effect instantly; the witcher needed to focus on the target for a moment before the Sign could reach the mind.
In Hogwarts terms, Elias compared it loosely to the Confundus Charm and, in its darker applications, the Imperius Curse.
Dumbledore asked to test Axii himself.
When Elias released the Sign, Dumbledore’s eyes went distant for only a heartbeat before he recovered.
Even so, he offered Axii high praise.
Slipping past Dumbledore’s Occlumency, even for an instant, was no small achievement.
The test finally ended.
Flitwick immediately hurried over to discuss practical application with Elias in greater detail.
Only after Elias promised that he would invite Flitwick to participate once formal Sign research began did the Charms professor leave, and even then, he looked reluctant.
That evening, Elias moved into his Hogwarts office.
Dumbledore assigned a Hogwarts house-elf named Pippy to guide him and tidy the room.
The sight of a creature so thoroughly bound to service left Elias unexpectedly unsettled.
Apparently exploitation was fluent in every world.
Alone in his office, Elias sat in thought.
He had exposed the Signs so readily because they increased his bargaining power with Dumbledore.
But they were not his only protection.
His true hidden card remained tucked inside the pouch he had enchanted with spatial magic: dimeritium.
In his old world, ordinary people had been able to capture and persecute mages largely because dimeritium existed.
Also known as anti-magic metal, dimeritium could suppress magical energy.
A mage locked in dimeritium shackles, or even forced into direct contact with the metal, would lose the ability to cast.
Bare skin touching it burned like flesh pressed to hot iron.
If dimeritium entered the body, the damage was far worse.
The metal was also extremely rare.
Even as a witcher with a Toussaint knighthood, Elias possessed only five dimeritium ingots.
His real killing weapon was more precious still: three dimeritium bombs.
Once triggered, each bomb would fill the blast zone with fine dimeritium dust.
To any wizard, that would be horrifying.
It might even be fatal.
And for now, it remained Elias’s greatest trump card.
✦ ✦ ✦ Ready for more?
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS EmberHollow Thank you for reading.
I hope this chapter pulled you deeper into the story.
Stick around, because there’s still a lot waiting just ahead.