"And your questions have been ignored, human." Grumbled the goblin, who walked away in the dark corridor, forcing Alexandra to quicken her pace to follow him.
Their march led them to another vault, which looked indistinguishable from the dozens others they had taken before. Hopefully, this was the one which had been used to summon the huge Salamander.
Of course, she had thought the same thing for the twenty or so vaults they had already opened. So far, each time had been met by a failure. Or at least she supposed there had been failures. Any attempt to communicate with the goblin who was her guide had been answered by sarcastic comments, vague remarks and mutterings in goblin language.
The door of the new vault opened in an atrocious, strident noise, letting the now usual green smoke indicating the protections of Gringotts had held for this particular part of the fortress. One more failure, then. But as the smoke dissipated in a matter of seconds, what appeared before her eyes was far from a portal leading to another dimension or piles of gold and silver coins.
From top to bottom, this gigantic vault was bristling with weapons. Thousands of weapons. Axes, halberds, swords and spears. Bows, crossbows and arbalests. Armours of different eras, sizes and materials. Jewels shining from vast and dangerous magical power. Hammer and flags decorated with mysterious runes but generating strong winds of magic from their current location. This was anything but a normal vault. This was a war arsenal. And it had the size of a football stadium.
Turning her head to the goblin who had taken place to her left, Alexandra could not stop herself to ask:
"Remind me what we are searching again?"
"A means to destroy the abomination in our citadel, of course." Replied the goblin, for once in an honest tone and without detour.
"I thought we were supposed to..."
"Find the place from where the Summon came and destroy the source of its power?" Finished Steelfang with a small rumble which was the equivalent for the goblin of a laugh. "And how do you want to proceed, human?"
Alexandra opened her mouth... and closed it. The warrior goblin had a point, damn him. She didn't know anything about the magical entity, its weaknesses or how to banish it from the fortress. For all she knew, cutting the salamander from its place of summon would make it stronger, which of course assumed they managed this minor exploit in the first place. Speaking of which...
"Let's say you're right." Alexandra told Steelfang. "Have you got a plan of replacement? Because unless my memory is wrong, the other survivors of the group are just making a diversion at this moment and they're going to die if we do nothing!"
"The others are already condemned." Said the strong goblin advancing in the vault towards a series of magical axes emanating an odour of ozone. "All we can do is ensuring their sacrifice is not in vain. Welcome to the secret armoury of our fortress, the one we only open in a time of great peril."
"And losing several hours to find an armoury which is filled with weapons entirely useless against this creature of flames and shadows is supposed to help us?" Asked Alexandra in a sceptical voice. "By the Valar, you couldn't even slow this monster in the first fight and you had an entire army at your side!"
At this, Steelfang stopped his examination of a huge silver spear to turn around and face her in the eyes.
"Goblins do not run, human. Goblins do not surrender. If this Summon wants a fight, then by the Fist of Ragnok the First I will give it one." And the light in his eyes gave a pretty good indication this was not a subject of discussion.
"Fine." The young witch emitted a loud breath. Arguing would lead her nowhere. It was clear the goblin had decided to die in a futile and useless assault against the demon. Who knows, maybe he and his friends had just decided in the Great Hall of the fortress in which order they were going to search the monster and challenge it in duel? Anyway, a great remainder that the being in front of her was definitely not a human, and never will be one.
"Any idea what sort of weapon should I choose?" Her eyes wandered about the uncountable number of sharp objects disposed in front of her in neat lines.
"Take a dagger or a short sword, human." Said the goblin in a calmer tone and pointing with his right hand a section of the vault.
Alexandra turned her head to watch, only to realise what she had taken for a helpful comment was exactly the opposite. This section of the vault, which could have absorbed the Dursley's house without any difficulty, was the deposit of thousands of daggers, knifes and short-ranged weapons.
"How am I supposed to make a choice in this pile of sharp things?" The Potter Heiress muttered, taking great care of not being heard by the warrior goblin.
One look behind told her she might have shouted her comment, Steelfang was completely absorbed by a choice between two great axes and looked to have forgotten Alexandra's presence. Rolling her shoulders, Alexandra started to explore the vault.
To the Ravenclaw witch's great annoyance, the task itself revealed extremely difficult. If at the front of the vault the goblins (or whoever they had used to clean the area) had been relatively organised, placing the weapons in neat lines with great alleys for a normal human to walk and objects of the same type together. But the furthest away the green-eyed girl walked from the door, the impression was the persons charged to organise had decided to abandon their duty and just throw the swords and spears everywhere without care. Axes covered by dozen of daggers. Hammers mixed with swords.
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