#21 - Puzzling Titles

Stepping back to watch the show, Reena noted that she would have not given the books to the correct founder if the colour was any indication for that correlation.

She still felt pleased that she had put them into the right order this time but was surprised when the bookshelf descended and opened up way for a narrow staircase leading downwards. She had expected a door, this was much more unsettling.
It reminded her of a nightmare she had had before christmas about nerverending stair cases downwards plunging her deeper and deeper into darkness with no way back out towards light and air.

So she hesitated.

She was certain however that this was exactly where she needed to go and she stubbornly refused to turn back now. Not like she could drink the pale potion now, it had shattered onto the stone floor. She knew she would come to regret her decision and that point in time was now.

Ugh.

She was feeling angry at herself for putting treasure first and for doing what she was about to do:

Pulling out her wand, she took the first step downwards into the stuffy, narrow darkness. The first steps she could see from the day light in the library but she soon found it vanished, at first blocked by her own shadow, and then by the fact that she went down deeper than anticipated.

"Lumos!", she whispered.

Her wand motion was shaky and she felt as though the closeness of the walls combined with the dust in the air compressed down on her chest, her rib cage pulling closer together and depriving her lungs of much needed space to breathe and supply her body and mind with enough oxygen to funtion.

Reena could feel her breathing become faster, more shallow and yet she kept on walking down the stairs, trying her best to stay clear of the walls as some part of her mind stubbornly pictured an army of spiders following her every move, just waiting for her to get close enough to jump onto her hair, crawl into her collar and make themselves at home inside her uniform before feasting on her live body...

Reena stopped abruptly and glanced back up the way she had come. She could feel her heart pound heavily in her chest, it was almost painful. She had the almost overwhelming desire to run back up into the library.

Sheer willpower alone made her turn back to face the downstairs darkness again and move on, hoping these stairs would lead to something pleasant in the end.

Reena was relieved when she at last found the bottom of the stairs and it opened into a wider area. Although, looking around in the light of her wand, she was not certain what she was looking at.

She wondered if anyone else had ever set foot in here and she walked along, inspecting several ledges and broken stairs with a sense of unease in this eerie place that might've resembled the Hogwarts castle if it wasn't in complete ruin.

How come the founders' magic could make stairs appear where they should not physically be but this place was all but turned to rubble?

When she found the large pot which seemed the only thing fresh, she turned to look around. She tried to tell herself that this was simply her paranoia talking but she had the uneasy feeling someone had been here to put the soil into the pot and was now watching her.

The more logical explanation was that the pot was the thing the founders' had put most care into maintaining and thus it appeared to be untouched by time unlike the rest of this strange area of the castle - if she even was still in the castle.

Judging by how long her descent had felt, she wouldn't be surprised if she was far under the Savannah by now.

Reena ran a hand along the pot's edge and felt the dark soil.

She was not certain what to do with it but she knew she did not want to dig around in it. Instead she thought about the ancient seed she had planted before and decided to water the soil and see what happened.

If she did have to dig in the pot after all... that would make it a lot more unpleasant but if it worked she could be spared having to get dirty.

"Aquamenti!", she tried for a reasonable drizzle onto the dark soil.

Reena watched with growing interest as the soil absorbed the water and returned to its original state.
Either this soil was so dry the water simply sank through or it was special magic soil that needed something else for her to proceed.

She opted for the latter and crouched down to run her hand along the side of the pot, shining the light of her wand close to it.

She was not sure what she was looking for, an inscription perhaps?

Now and again she cast a look back into the darkness around her, the feeling of unease lingering yet subdued now that she had another mission.

If she did not find anything on the pot or the ledge it was on, she would revisit her earlier idea of digging through the soil in the pot, but she did feel apprehensive about it after seeing the way the water had been absorbed.

What if she too would be absorbed?

Reena flinched back upon being zapped by the protective magic. It did however confirm her earlier suspicion that the pot had been the focus of the founders at the time and she felt a bit more at ease.

When she found the shape of a potions vial edged into the pot she looked at it puzzled. What kind of potion did ancient absorbing soil need?

She somehow doubted it was fertilizer.

When something shiny above her caught her attention, she suddenly got an idea.

Perhaps the potion was already here?

“Accio vial!“, she waved her wand at it after getting back up from her crouch.

Even while casting the spell Reena knew it was a long shot that whatever was up there (if it even was the potion) would respond to her magic and wasn’t in itself protected from such attempts.