Chapter Text
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Martyn can feel his heart thumping in his chest, body crawling with nerves and adrenaline. His breath, slightly quicker than normal, is muffled by the green fabric covering the lower half of his face. He is close now. Right down the corridor and around the corner. He slowly continues down the hallway, passing tall doors, hearing the shuffles of steps behind them, murmurs of people talking. But he ignores those sounds, instead focusing on the sounds of the guards in front of the chamber he needs to get to. They are silent, sometimes a quiet shuffle from a small movement.
As Martyn gets to the turn in the hallway, he peers around the corner carefully. He sees the two guards, one on each side of the doors. The doors are even taller than the ones he passed earlier, made out of a rich brown wood, painted red around the edges, detailed with gold. Definitely the right room.
He quickly ducks back around the wall when one of the guards starts turning towards him. He needs a way to distract them, a way to be able to get past them through the doors. Martyn starts humming quietly, muffled down by the fabric covering the lower half of his face to be quiet enough not to be heard by the guards. As he focuses on the sounds of his voice, he feels his magic become active. He turns around the corner once more, looking at the other side of the corridor, at the next bend.
He releases his magic from his voice, willing it to move along the hallway, around the corner on the other side and making a sound as if someone had tripped and dropped something, leaving it clattering onto the ground.
The noises immediately pull the attention of the two guards, looking in the direction of its seeming place of origin. They turn to each other and nod, one moving further ahead from the other, making sure that at least one of them is still in the visible range of their post. Martyn hears the hurried footsteps from the guard further ahead as they run down the other corridor to check what the origin of the sound could be. The other guard, while in visible range of the doors, has his back turned, looking down the other corridor.
Martyn slowly enters the main hallway, closing in on the doors. He keeps his eyes on the guard with his back turned, and his ears pierced for any hints of the other guard returning to the hallway. As he gets to the doors and grabs onto one of the cool metal door handles, he takes a deep breath and wills his magic to dampen the creaking sound as he opens the door, keeping up concentration until he has entered the room and closes the door again behind him.
He waits in front of the door, back turned to the chamber, listening for any hint that the guards might have noticed him. After a few moments, he hears the two guards closing in on the doors. Martyn’s whole body tenses up, ready for one of them to ram into the door, but then he hears one of them speak. “There is nothing. Probably just one of the other guards messing about.” They laugh it off before they go silent again.
Martyn takes another breath and turns around, moving further into the room.It is a large chamber, a carpet leading down a path, different artifacts displayed in cases along the sides. He gives a few of them a quick glance and spots a diamond axe, shining from the magic enchanting it, paired with similarly enchanted armor, he spots some jewelry, embedded with red gemstones.
But these are not what he is after. He looks in front of him, at the only object not encased, instead laying on a pedestal. A book. The Enchanter. A spell book filled with powerful spells, written by a certain group of Listeners, but which was trusted to the royal family of Dogwarts centuries ago, who have kept it safe and guarded for all that time. Its magic has been passed down from Heir to Heir, each heir to the throne learns these spells to be able to protect their people.
It is a thick book, intricate details pressed into the leather binding it, including a familiar symbol on the cover, a symbol which is also engraved on Martyn’s necklace. The symbol of the listeners.
Martyn reaches out his hand carefully towards the book, aware that it wouldn’t just be left in a room with no more defenses, aware that there is probably some type of alarm that would activate when touched or taken. As his hands brushes over the cover, he keeps his ear pierced for any sign of people running towards this room, but nothing yet.
He opens the Enchanter, and starts flipping through the pages. He notices that there must be some type of preservation spell cast on it, the pages still being in surprisingly good shape for the age of the book. As he gets to the final pages, he sees a change in the writing. Yes, this is what he was after. The spells in the last section of the book are written in a different language, an old language that the Listeners who wrote the book used to make sure the spells could only be learnt by other Listeners who knew this language, preventing them from falling into the wrong hands.
Throughout his time with the Listeners, Martyn had learnt some of the language, but he still struggles with reading it, often needing more time to be able to puzzle the meaning of it together. But he knows that somewhere within these pages, there is the spell that he needs, the spell that can take down the Watchers. A grin spreads on Martyn’s face as he closes the book again. He is closer than ever to beating them, his weapon is right in front of him, he only needs to get to them, and use it.
Martyn’s hands hover on the sides of the spellbook, preparing himself before he grabs it and starts running along the walls of the room. He hears some panicked shuffles behind the doors. So, he was right about the Enchanter having an extra alarm, he assumes.
The two guards burst into the room, looking towards the pedestal where the spellbook had laid. He hears both of them let out a string of curses as they notice it being gone. They hurry further into the room, and Martyn takes his chance to run out of the doors, hearing the guards yell after him as he closes the doors and continues running. Once out of the doors, he hears more guards approaching from both sides. He stops for a moment to listen more closely. Less footsteps are sounding from the left, less guards, better chance of being able to get past them.
Martyn starts running down the hallway towards the turn on the left. He feels the air through his cloak, attempting to pull his hood off. He holds the Enchanter underneath one arm, and holds his hood with the other. He continues running down the hallway until he spots the guards incoming. He goes to the nearest door, and quickly enters the room, hoping that they won’t have spotted him.
He backs away from the door, further into the room, focusing on the nearing sounds of hurried footsteps. He only realises that he should have been more observant of his surroundings when he hears a voice speak up. “Who are you and what are you doing in my room?”
Martyn tenses up and turns around towards the voice. Shit. Of course he had to pick a room with someone in it. A man sits at a desk, a man white hair tied into a short ponytail, the shorter hairs secured out of his face with a black headband, fox ears peering out of his hair, the same color as his hair, a scar running over one of his eyes down towards his mouth, scarred skin where his lips splits open, leaving a small part of his teeth uncovered at all times. The man looks him over before his eyes fall on the book he is holding, widening as he realises what it is. He stands up and starts moving towards a sword hanging on the wall.
Martyn quickly leaves the room, hoping that the other guards might have passed the room already, but is quickly disappointed. He panics and runs back in the direction where he came from, hearing the man from the room also following. Martyn feels his breath speed up. He didn’t plan well enough, he didn’t plan for the escape.
More guards appear from the other side, getting rid of any way to escape. He tries to think of something, anything that he can do to get out of here, but his panicked brain can’t come up with anything, and before he knows it, the white-haired man has his sword pointed at his throat, now having a dark piece of fabric covering the lower half of his face.
“Drop the book.” He notices Martyn’s gaze still frantically finding a way out of the situation. “There’s no way to get away. Drop the book, or we’ll take it by force.”
He was right and Martyn knew it, the guards were still slowly closing in, cornering Martyn more and more. “Fine.” He puts the spellbook on the ground, and one of the guards quickly takes it at the fox hybrid’s signal.
Two other guards grab Martyn’s arms harshly and start dragging him down the hallway. Martyn lets himself get pulled away without much struggle, looking back at the guard now holding the Enchanter.
Shit. This has just gotten a whole lot more complicated.