HP: Spirit Talker

I didn't feel anything for the first few moments, so I tried to reach for the damaged contract bracelet that I had put on my arm for some reason. It had been sealed before, but for some reason I had put it on when I entered the labyrinth. When the last mage with his strange acceleration abilities and animal-like agility (I suspect he was a werewolf) tried to stab me in the armpit, intending to pierce my heart with his triple-bladed claws, I simply covered myself with my hand, and the blow damaged the ancient artifact, and the burst of magic released caught the cursed goblet we were near.

I didn't really look at what happened next, but I felt that the bracelet was the center of the strange disturbances — distortions of space — and it was dragging me along with it. When I was working on the equipment, I set the goal of making it as reliable as possible, trying to provide for everything, but somehow I did not think that I might need to quickly reset it or cut it off if there were wounds. I had read once that modern military equipment had special laces that could be used to tighten wounds like a tourniquet and even more, but I had forgotten about it.

That was the first impression when I looked around, but very quickly I realized that I was seeing with my eyes, not with my mind as before, but with my eyes the starting point — the very imaginary place from which I first saw the "clusters of worlds". It is unclear how I was physically transported to a place that should not be there, but that is not the main point, the main point is that I could literally feel the artifact tremble under my hand. I could feel an infinite number of "strings" attached to it, and I could feel those "strings" trembling because someone had managed to form a "call" to which the artifact was responding.

But if there had been at least a dozen or two "calls", it would not have been so terrible, but there were hundreds, thousands, thousands of them, and each of them was pulling the artifact towards itself with a steel rope, trying to overpower the others, to win. Perhaps it was because of the proportionality of the efforts on all sides that I was not torn apart in the first moments — they simply compensated for each other until my fingers finally reached the hot gold of the bracelet.

I immediately noticed the deep gash and the sticky, hot blood on the artifact. My fingers clawed helplessly at the crumpled clasp, literally melted by the impact of the magical weapon. I was filled with despair mixed with stubborn determination: better to lose my hand than to dissolve into that blackness!

The first signs of "dissolution" were already visible: the tattered cloak was shrinking before my eyes, fading away, disappearing without a trace, and there was also a tingling-burning sensation on my skin, barely perceptible yet frightening because of the realization of the future effect — a kind of strange warning.

I was afraid to take risks in this unknown place and to extract artifacts from other artifacts — there was no telling what effect it would have and what the consequences would be "here". I couldn't use the wand — the last lurking enemy had broken it with the first blow, and I gave the spare wand to Fleur. No, I have more, but they're sealed. I didn't even think at the time that I wouldn't be able to get them out of the artifact if I needed them, but now I'm just scared.

What am I breathing? This question didn't bother me at all. I'm alive, I can act, I can feel my magic, and the rest doesn't matter at this point. However, just in case, I distracted myself from trying to open the bracelet, concentrated, and created a powerful shielding orb around me, like the ones I use for apparating, and immediately felt the tingling in my skin disappear.

My sphere floated in the void, as if in weightlessness, there was no definite support, but I didn't care, because time was running out, and I could feel in my gut how the "door" was closing, how the "void" was coming in, increasing its power over me, and if I didn't tear off the damn bracelet that was holding me here, I might die.

Relaxing my body, I fall into a deep trance and realize that there is no spiritual plan, no spirits, nothing at all, as if this place, this plan, is one for everything at once, like a natural intertwining of "yes" and "no," "here" and "there," and so on. But it doesn't matter. I pressed all my attention into the sphere I was now in, and began to weave, which I used to do only with the help of a magic wand.

The blocks did not want to line up in the right order, they kept shifting, trembling, "floating" as if an unknown wind was constantly disturbing something that could not be touched at all. Literally in a few minutes, my clothes were soaked with sweat from the strenuous effort of holding the blocks created, creating new ones, and attaching them to the already completed construction. It was extremely slow, heavy, as if every time I took a step towards the mountain river, but it went on. I forbade myself to think about anything, so any problems were simply noted by my consciousness, taken into account, taken into consideration, and the work continued. I did not think at all about what could be the cause of this strange influence that kept interfering with me, and I put it aside for later.

If I were in a normal state, I would probably be angry, but in a working trance, passion-emotions are pushed aside, and so I mechanically, time after time, time after time, performed the tasks until the result was acceptable, and sometimes — excellent. The structure of the spell, for the sake of durability in this strange environment with incomprehensible influence, I was on the move finalized to the present form — the kind of clockwork, in which even the "case" — another gear, which only pushes the whole structure in the conditions of external influence. "Gears" in the "clock" worked, the magic changed the structure and the target, the operator for it was now needed only in the role of a designator, the rest of the "smart" mechanism will do itself.

The first target — a vulnerable point in the charms of stabilizing the fixing of magical structures in the metal. Before my eyes, the complex mechanism of what used to be an ordinary spell produced several surgically precise impulses and cuts, and "withdrew", frozen in anticipation. At the target points, the process of overloading began — the compensation circuit was damaged, the structure lost its "shock-absorbing" stability. The metal of my hand became noticeably hot. Next.

Activating the "wide beam": the mechanism worked, the modules changed positions precisely, as if the gears in the transmission were shifting, and now the bracelet was enveloped in a continuous stream of silver light. An admixture of some mineral (I don't remember what kind, but it's in the records) in the gold disintegrated into its components. The gold alloy, previously no weaker than the finest steel, began to crumble, to disintegrate rapidly. Another "switch gear" spell, and the last anchors of the magical structures of the bracelet lose their binding on the physical plane of the bracelet, and are immediately reattached to the usual crystal, which I managed to create a lot, and one of them happened to be in my pocket at the right moment.

The magical construct, like a dandelion fluff, rose easily from its former home, lifted, swayed in my direction, but in its path was a crystal with a small amount of magic. From the fluffy "chestnut" shot out a tenacious "grasp" that the construct, like a living creature, attracted to the new physical anchor, and in a flash unfolded into its working version. More precisely, the construct did not stop working, but it oscillated within the limits of imprecision, which was not clear to me and which was allowed by the "ropes-zovs".

The crystal floated in front of me, shining moderately in the darkness, as if a new star world had been born. I hoped that this tiny reserve of magic would be enough for the construct to cling to it, and then, quickly exhausting its charge, it would crumble, dry up, and disintegrate without a trace, like a moisture-loving plant in the Sahara. But this was not to be! In some unknown way, magic began to flow into the crystal from somewhere outside, steadily supporting the artifact's work. If I had time, I would have liked to observe it, to study it, but what I don't have, I don't have.

At this moment I could take a breath, relax, sit down for a smoke, etc... but not in this "place", it's not for the living, and therefore I have to hurry. The structure of the "clockwork", which was previously a transfiguration spell for working with metals, melting them and changing their shape, was very carefully placed in a large ruby in the ring (finally this stone found a use other than the role of mere jewelry!) for further study of the creation of my dark genius.

Then, with renewed concentration, I took direct control of the Shield Sphere spell and began to gently compress it until the crystal was beyond its limits. Okay, this step was risky — I just didn't know if this manipulation would work, or if the artifact would stabilize the sphere with me inside. But the crystal seemed indifferent to any external manipulation, the main thing was not to touch it, frozen in a steel vise in the black void. As a reasonable person, I decided not to touch something that somehow worked on its own.

Now the last stage — to pull myself out of this swamp like a famous baron and into my own native swamp. The red beads of the rosary, with hieroglyphics burning on each bead, came out of the whole sleeve like an obedient, trained snake. — One of my trophies, a very powerful weapon and chain against any evil spiritual or semi-spiritual entity, or a sinner whose soul is willing to turn into an evil dark creature, lich, or any other evil thing in exchange for the possibility of rebirth in the Wheel of Sansara.

I printed out the whip because I feared, rightly in retrospect, the possibility of being in the labyrinth of dementors or some other dark abomination against which these rosaries are indispensable. Fortunately or not, they were only useful to me now as a rope with a cat on the end.