Ian flailed wildly in the sky, darting this way and that, as if a mad poltergeist had taken hold of him. He even plummeted headfirst into the dunes more than once. The scene was, to put it mildly, far from graceful.
Still,
He'd covered a surprising amount of distance, even quicker than an old-school Oakshaft 79 on a good tailwind. But of course, the cloak wasn't quite finished.
"I knew I shouldn't have enchanted you with rudimentary self-guidance!"
The last 1%, the missing piece, had been an attempt at rudimentary sentience, a kind of magical "guidance matrix" Ian now sorely regretted. But it was too late to go back, so he did what any stubborn young wizard would: he tried to coax the half-witted cloak into cooperating.
"Is this what it feels like to soothe a grumpy golem?" He muttered, finally managing to hover in a reasonably straight line. The satisfaction of simply staying aloft washed over him, and the frustration began to melt away.
From above, the desert stretched endlessly below him. A vast, black expanse of cold, unyielding silence. As far as his eyes could see, not a single ghost, beast, plant, or even the faintest ruin marred the landscape.
It was untouched. Undisturbed.
And oddly… perfect.
As every witch or wizard knows, Ghosts always alter the places they haunt. Their presence warps the air, imbues the stones, distorts the feel of the surroundings. Yet this desert remained pure. Pristine. As though no soul, living or dead, had ever claimed it.
It felt as if it had always been this way.
Since the beginning of time.
"Could some phantom actually prefer this eternal, bleak monotony?" Ian wondered aloud. "Even Death himself wouldn't be this bored... would he?"
Was it possible that Death had made this barren land his home? And if so, had he already noticed Ian's arrival, an uninvited guest in his dominion? If that were true, surely Death would have made an appearance by now, reaping what was his.
But Ian's inner clock, the magic-linked timer of his current illusion's "Experience Card", ticked on undisturbed. He was able to remain here far longer than in past excursions.
Still,
The phenomenon Professor Morgan had described, about the mystical shift that would occur when one's magical power reached its absolute limit, had yet to manifest for Ian.
"Could Lady Ravenclaw have been right all along?" He thought, frowning. "She claimed I'd need to break through the boundary of mortal magic before anything unknown would happen."
Weighing the theories from both Professor Morgan and Lady Rowena Ravenclaw, Ian could only go with his instincts.
And for now, those instincts told him, he hadn't reached the peak just yet.
He had indeed reached the upper threshold of a wizard's magical power, but even though he had set foot upon the path of legend and his magical core continued to deepen, he knew he had yet to break through the bottleneck that truly restrained him.
"So… Professor Morgan doesn't know everything. At least when it comes to what happens after a wizard reaches their magical limit, perhaps she's miscalculated?"
Ian wasn't entirely sure.
After all, the place he found himself in now was rather an oddity in itself. He couldn't leave of his own volition.
All he could do was continue to drift through the unending black desert. Still, it wasn't entirely a waste of time, it gave him the perfect excuse to polish his skills with the flying cloak.
"If I secretly keep practising for two and a half days straight, my dashing aerial maneuvers will knock everyone's socks off back at school." Ian consoled himself with that thought.
The occasional gust of wind sent waves of black sand swirling across the horizon. These dusty whorls danced in the air, forming eerie, half-formed silhouettes, like spectres caught mid-thought. The dim and hazy atmosphere seemed to tighten around his vision, making it difficult to see far, and yet impossible to look away.
Every breeze appeared to carry flickering, dreamlike images. They hovered at the edge of perception, close enough to glimpse, always out of reach, only to be swept away and replaced by the next gust.
The silence pressing in around him was stifling, swallowing even the loudest sound. As Ian continued gliding forward, the scenery around him became more and more alike, until it blurred into an exhausting sameness. Eventually, the weight of it all made him feel drained.
"Using my own magic to power my flight was always going to be a stopgap solution," He muttered to his cloak. "I will find a hidden, enchanted core or some kind of autonomous flux crystal, then you'll fly on your own, even when I'm spent."
When it came to magical inventions for getting out of tight spots, Ian was unusually diligent. His motivation wasn't entirely due to his desire for long-distance flight and the ability to sleep while his cloak stood sentinel. Mostly.
"This place is unbearable! This whole 'Twilight Zone Limited-Time Experience Card' is complete madness. If I don't hurry up, I'll be stuck here for an entire day and night!"
"Can't at least a couple of ghosts show up to have a natter? I'd even take an Inferius or two! I'm starved for company, give me a banshee, a hinkypunk, even a friendly centaur! Anything! Honestly, I'd even settle for a niffler wearing glasses at this point…"
Ian rubbed at his eyes, feeling a creeping sense of aesthetic exhaustion.
The wind and sand couldn't blind him.
But the monotony of the scenery certainly could.
Combined with the drifting black dust in the air, it left him feeling low, though he'd tell you that had nothing to do with the fact it was currently midnight, the hour when thoughts get heaviest.
"Merlin's beard, I don't understand any of this! Why in the name of Morgana was I brought to this bleak nowhere?"
With a quiet sigh, Ian drew his wand once again.
He decided to burn through some magical energy with a few powerful spells, speeding up the depletion of his "Twilight Zone Limited-Time Experience Card." Anything to shorten his stay in this desolate place.
He had already flown for several hours.
And every stretch of desert he passed was identical, like someone had duplicated the terrain with a Copying Charm. The farther he flew, the more he was reminded of a traumatising experience he'd once had. It felt like being trapped in that cursed illusion game, universally agreed upon by wizardkind as the most abysmal entertainment experience in magical history.
It was just an endless desert.
Only the sand's colour differed.
"Expecto Patronum!"
After considering his options, Ian decided that rather than wasting time with transfigurations or enchantments, it was better to attempt a Patronus. Perhaps Ariana, the spirit he'd once bonded with, could find Professor Morgan, who might then Apparate across to retrieve him. Lady Rowena Ravenclaw herself had once done something similar when she went to retrieve her daughter, after all.
Ian had faith.
His Professor Morgan certainly could do it.
However, whether she would was anyone's guess.
"The mood of a legendary witch is impossible to predict," Ian muttered, raising his wand.
Silver threads of light began spilling from the tip, weaving across the night sky in gleaming arcs, each thread brilliant as stardust. They shimmered stark and radiant against the oppressive, lightless desert, softening the harsh crimson gleam of the blood moon.
Perhaps, for the first time in many centuries, white magic had graced this forsaken realm.
"What's happening?"
The moment the spell activated, Ian realised something was amiss. The Patronus should have connected directly to his [Patronus Ring], but he felt nothing, no familiar tug, no guiding thread.
And more curiously, even the magic's internal structure felt subtly different. The usual rhythm of the spellcasting nodes had shifted, just enough for him to notice.
Ian could sense it clearly: the magic wasn't flowing normally.
"It's the Twilight Zone beneath me…" He whispered, stunned.
(To Be Continued…)
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