章節 19: Not actually Goblins
After Gaude learned the rune cluster necessary to absorb ambient magic and direct it into the rune scheme, he dismissed Linda, since he had become quite exhausted.
After a nap, he returned to the orphanage stealthily and set up a few alarm wards that would send him a signal once a dark creature, such as a Vampire, a Hag or a Werewolf wandered too close to the orphanage to be just passing by.
That was all Gaude was able to do before Laly apparated next to him and reported: "Master, Laly's subordinates have found a drug trafficking ring. They are operating from a warehouse in the docks."
'Finally! I can put some of my financial concerns to rest!', Gaude thought jubilantly, as if the money was already in his pocket. While that wasn't entirely true, he did have an army of decently trained house elves and a whole lot of magic on his side.
"Call twenty best-performing elves from training. We'll attack in five minutes."
Gaude himself checked the contents of his Mokeskin pouch. In it, he found a phial of Draught of the Living Death, brewed personally by Snape, quality guaranteed. Two boxes of throwing stars – his weapon of choice, to be used with telekinesis.
Sure, Gaude could only control around four throwing stars at a time without risk of losing control over one or two, but even that made him into a force to be reckoned with within a range of twenty feet at least. Any further than that and his ability to manipulate objects dropped off rapidly, control with telekinesis seemed to be a function of distance, similar to the fundamental forces.
There was also a small tray, meant for dipping the throwing stars into the potion. Together, they made a quick delivery system for the potion, a fast-acting knock-out drug. According to tests, it only took two heartbeats at most to knock out an adult, and that was if he nicked them in a leg with the coated throwing star. Closer to the head and they were down in a heartbeat.
There were also a few emergency medicinal potions for the case that their plan went awry at some point and elves on his side got injured.
There was also a Quickcarve knife. Gaude had decided to set up an alarm ward the moment he started the operation so he wouldn't be caught off guard by any reinforcements or a shift change suddenly arriving.
Finally, there was rope, around half a mile of it. That may have been an overkill, but Gaude had it in a corner of his pouch, not taking up too much space or anything. He would end up using it for various projects anyway. Probably. If not, he could always save it for his teenage and adult years, as there is more than one way to use a good length of rope.
Gaude nodded in satisfaction. Everything he would need seemed to be right there.
The elves that he had requested for were also standing in front of him, in a neat row.
"Let's move out.", Gaude said, and stretched out his arm towards Laly.
The elf seemed a bit dejected as of late, but Gaude figured that it had to do with some personal issues.
"You know, Laly, if there's a matter that's troubling you, you should just discuss it with me freely. After that, we can decide together what to do about it.", Gaude said. He wasn't just going to order the elf to reveal what was troubling her, he thought it must've been a small matter.
"No, master, it's nothing important. Laly can get it done."
"Very well. Off we go."
They popped straight in front of a warehouse. The elves were already in position next to the doors and windows. They were looking towards Gaude as soon as he had arrived.
Gaude lowered his left hand with extended fingers, curling it into a fist along the way and then thrust it towards each of the doors, with his thumb covering his pinky finger. As the elves had been personally trained by him, they understood the meaning of the seemingly obscure hand signals quite well.
The elves turned invisible, six of them rushing at each of the doors, two on the sides and two in front of them in prone position. A moment later, Gaude did a 'boom' gesture with his hand and both doors were blown off their hinges simultaneously. Before the doors even managed to hit the floor, a barrage of house elf magic followed inside and while Gaude didn't see them, he knew that the elves that had been on standby had already apparated past the barrage of spells, to the sides of the doorway.
Meanwhile, the barrage of spells had grown in intensity as well, a sure sign that the elves that had been tasked with breaching the door had joined their brethren in laying down cover. A moment later, the barrage of spells from the doorway stopped as a few flashes of light were emanating from the inside, accompanied by yells and groans.
More flashes of light followed and before Gaude was even able to walk into the warehouse at a leisurely pace, one of the elves apparated in front of him and reported: "All clear, master!"
Next up was naturally the interrogation.
Gaude made good use of the rope in his Mokeskin pouch and tied all twenty-three men to a chair, then took out a phial of Veritaserum, courtesy of one Severus Snape working hard for a few days to make an entire cauldron of the stuff.
If Gaude was asked about the best quality of Severus Snape, he'd undoubtedly say: "He doesn't give a rat's ass about Ministry laws and regulations when it comes to potions. He'll just brew anything that is requested of him. However, he prefers the more challenging ones."
Veritaserum turned out to be one of those potions that Snape liked to brew. Gaude had also noticed a few inconsistencies between the storage room inventory and potions brewed, that put together would create a few very specific potions, but he was going to let it slide until Snape was going to act on that. There were elves with a specific set of instructions keeping a stealthy eye on the youngster, so he wouldn't be able to go too far in the first place.
After a while, one of the captives started showing signs of regaining his consciousness.
Gaude, once again donning the Heisenberg look, started speaking and pointing at various tied up at various people: "Hey, you. You were trying to cross the boss, right? Then some random guy just waltzed in and knocked you out, same as them, and that wanker over there."
The barely awake man stared at Gaude as if he was an idiot of some kind.
"Hey, I tried, alright? It was really hard to make it work, you know."
"Anyhow, open up and have a taste."
Gaude opened the still disoriented man's mouth and shoved a Veritaserum laced finger in his mouth, then pulled it out even quicker, trying to avoid a work-related injury.
After a while, Gaude had become aware that this organization, like any other proper criminal organization, had a boss that didn't really hang out as a night watchman. It turned out that the boss was actually the proud owner of a small villa in the countryside.
After one of the drug ring warehouse guys was 'convinced' to help him out, Gaude was driven to that villa in style.
He summoned the elves and this time, Gaude had decided to lead the charge. He quickly came face to face with the barrel of an assault rifle.
Fortunately, just a split second later, the man pointing it at the illusion of Heisenberg's chest reconsidered opening fire due to discovering his sudden lack of a trigger finger, courtesy of one of Gaude's throwing stars.
As to why he didn't announce his discovery loudly to the rest of the men patrolling the grounds, it was due to him suffering a severe case of an open sore throat – another one of the throwing stars had granted him the gift of having an extra breathing hole.
As the man opted to sleep off his ailments and also engage in a sudden weight loss regime by expelling some of his bodily fluids, Gaude continued his evening stroll towards the house.
Once they were inside, Gaude could hear the very distinct sound of Goblins engaging in some serious hand to hand combat. Despite the suspicious noises, he decided to brave the unknown and took long – as long as his body allowed – strides towards the battlefield, his throwing stars ready for any ambushes.
Once he opened the door to the master bedroom that also happened the location of the battlefield, he discovered that it wasn't a fair and square one on one fight at all, instead two females were ganging up on a single male, using teeth, claws and snu-snu techniques to try and conquer their adversary.
The man suddenly glanced at Gaude with pitiful eyes, as if begging for salvation and even tried to use the moment that the two females were distracted to scramble off the bed where he had been undoubtedly dragged to be slain, but he was pinned down too well, unable to move.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't know you were that busy! I guess I'll come back some time later.", Gaude shouted into the room.
He then closed the door and took a few steps away, then combined telekinesis and the foot of his illusion to kick the door open again and yelled: "Like hell I will! Get your ass dressed, we have a few things to discuss!" Gaude's actions were in no way related to the fact that kicking the door down was a much cooler entry than just turning the knob and doing it normally.
The shouting seemed to sober up the two females as they also started slowly dressing themselves, not minding at all that a complete stranger was observing the process. It seemed that they had taken quite the dose of good ol' berserker dust when they were still preparing for the battle.
A few moments later, the man was already bound to a chair, had given Gaude the exact location of the safe and the combination as well as told him the location of the keys. After some more questioning, the man had also revealed all his other connections in the underworld.
Gaude also discovered that this particular man was actually running two types of business that nobody would expect to exist in the jurisdiction of a top-tier drug-dealer: in addition to the import-export business, he was also in the beggar business, sending out well-trained beggars to the best locations.
The actual homeless that tried to plant their butt in those locations usually woke up in a very far out of body experience, discovering that not only were they suddenly visited by a fairy that gifted them with a brand new knife, but that fairy was also very stabby and in the end, couldn't bear to part with the present it was supposed to hand over.
Gaude then decided that he could actually use underworld connections – they were quite the money-makers, if the contents of that man's safe were anything to judge by. There was also the matter of him having his hands in the beggar trade – he had only so many elves for information gathering and nobody noticed a homeless unless they were too obnoxious.
Gaude forced the man to drink a few loyalty-inducing potions – once again, his thanks went out to his resident Potions Master that managed to make top tier products – and carried on with the night's work.
Gaude wasn't aware, or more accurately, he didn't care, that Snape had actually taken up periodic self-administration of five different types of antidotes for loyalty potions, just in case. Even if the contract that Snape had signed and the oath he swore allowed only absolute loyalty, he still wanted to be sure that he was doing things out of his own free will, within the boundaries set by the oath and contract.
Gaude ended up gracing fifteen suspicious, shady or downright dark establishments that night and by the end of his tax collection spree, he had ended up with around five hundred and thirty-eight thousand pounds. Converting that to Galleons, it was almost a hundred and eight thousand, not a small sum at all.
Each of the criminals was gathered into a holding area, bound at first. Later, Gaude administered loyalty inducing potions to them and then had them sign away their lives on contracts – while it was unlikely that Muggles would be able to influence the contract too much by being willing or unwilling, it was still safter to have them be willing, even if that state was induced through the use of potions.
Finally, Gaude gathered all of his elves to the hall of the mansion.
He spoke: "You all have done an excellent job today. Those of you that participated in the fighting, you have all earned the right to wear your name on your uniform.
Those that have so far managed to gather the most intel about the London underworld, you've also earned the same right. Thank you for your contribution and get stitching."
Gaude himself went to sleep. He slept as if he had just gone through two days and two nights of heavy drinking, also known as sleeping like a baby after an entire day of crawling about, because that would be the only way of getting around in either state, either being a proper baby or properly Brahmsed.
###
Once Gaude felt like he was able to properly move his overworked legs again, he went to pay a visit to Snape once again – he had another order to put in. Naturally, he did that in the illusory body of old man Charles Vywin.
The private booth Gaude had given to Snape had gone through a few changes: now, instead of just a working surface, a Bunsen burner and a regular fume hood, there were a few knobs, dials and buttons attached to it as well as a few cranks.
Gaude sneaked up on Snape while he was keeping a very close eye on a cauldron while turning a crank to adjust the precise angle of it as a motorized contraption was stirring the contents. He then spoke: "Severus, my favorite Potions Master. Do you know why I'm here?"
The young man jolted, nearly spilling the contents of the cauldron all over the floor and himself.
"Sir, must you sneak up on people like that?", he complained.
"You seem extra jumpy today. Guilty conscience perhaps?", Gaude probed.
There was an imperceptible twitch at the corner of Snape's eye, faster that the eye could catch, then it was over, and he said: "No, sir, nothing like that. I was simply quite concentrated on the process."
"It's good if you're not doing anything behind my back, as I've recently found quite an interesting potion recipe from the family grimoire. I would like you to produce a few batches. You can play around with it a bit as usual; I doubt that the one described here is the perfect version."
As Gaude spoke, he took out a note he had transcribed from the grimoire. He had been studying it and had found out that the vast majority of it was on blood and ritual magic. He had discovered that the Vywin family had been quite special in the branch of magic they studied and practiced.
The family magic had been bloodline magic, a branch of blood magic that dealt with adding the bloodlines of others to oneself. The rituals dealt with the aftermath – stabilizing the new bloodlines to avoid the negative side-effects.
Normally, that magic was to be used to strengthen oneself by adding the bloodlines of sentient magical creatures, however, there was the side-effect of causing infertility in the recipient, which meant that one would have to make sure to continue the lineage before self-enhancement.
There was however one bloodline magic branch that was considered as a strict taboo in the Vywin family, the practice of which would normally end with the practitioner being disowned by the family, as it lead to going partially or completely feral due to becoming a werebeast. Since there weren't conditions such as a full moon attached to the bloodline magic, they ended up remaining in the state permanently.
However, once Gaude had read about the beast bloodline magic and compared it to the more mainstream bloodline magic, he discovered something that didn't seem to be a subject of experiment at all – each time, the potion recipe mentioned that an entire phial of the target's blood should be used in the potion.
Gaude suspected that in some cases, an entire phial might be a grave overdose. That was exactly why he wanted Snape to perfect and brew the potion for him, so that he could start experimenting – after all, he suddenly found himself with an over-abundance of 'willing' test subjects, also known as the criminal element.
There was also another reason why Gaude wanted to test out beast bloodline potions - he had read the book 'Hairy Snout, Human Heart', and found that the author of the book, a Werewolf, had in fact heard stories about there being a native American tribe that had 'Skinwalkers' in its ranks - people that could transition between Werewolf and human forms at will.
Gaude suspected that the Skinwalker method would be the key to maintaining one's sanity after having a magical beast bloodline added to themselves.
"Additionally, I want you to start using new labels on the potions you have improved. You see, I'm about to get a brand going when it comes to potions.
I've seen your work and I must say, you're quite suitable to ensure an unprecedented quality. I've never seen potions that manifest an aura around a sealed phial before."
Gaude then handed Snape a few sample labels, depicting an animated scene with a healer apparating to people with various grievous injuries and pouring a few drops of potions into the wounds. The wounds visibly heal and the healer moves on to the next patient.
"The effect might not be quite as advertised, but from the tests I've performed on "willing" subjects, the potions are definitely enough to keep the patient alive even after receiving an otherwise near-immediately lethal injury."
Next up, of course, Gaude had a random elf take him to the potions' shop and instructed Linda on how to modify the windows on the front to start the advertisement for the new product. The apothecary's name was finally set as 'Mother of Mercy Apothecary', while the new line of potions was named 'Mother of Mercy Potions', something that would distinguish them from the regular type sold in the apothecary.
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