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“Space, Mind, Reality, Power, Time, and Soul. But why do you want these things? It's in the aid of world domination, isn't it.” asks Hermione of the curly haired god lounging around in a scruffy tunic on the throne in front of her. Clavicus Vile - the Wishmaster and Prince of Power - or so it is alleged. Hermione has yet to taste the pudding that will supply proof of such exultant titles.
At her question the demonic entity makes a face like a child might, his expression exaggeratedly sly and full of false innocence. Since he animated his statue in order to speak to her, he's a cheeky giant made of marble and gold rather than a giant man-thing made of flesh. Also, ‘cheeky’ is being very British about it. He's a devil, something Hermione keeps reminding herself not to forget. It shouldn't be that difficult, given the horns and the evil exuding from his every feature.
“Why? Why do I want the Infinity Stones? Come now, mortal. The whispers in Oblivion say you’re not the sort who need waste time in asking such trivial questions. World domination, yes, what else? Quid pro quo.”
“I'm not asking for world domination.”
The possessed statue forms an even more satryish expression, contorting its stone features into malignancy that shouldn't even be possible on a human face. “Yet there's this little mortal phrase that goes, uh, how was it?" Vile rolls his massive eyes at the ceiling. "Ah, that's it - ‘knowledge is power’, ergo he who possesses all the knowledge in the world possesses all the power.”
“I want it merely for academic reasons. And also so I can lead Wizarding Britain more effectively.”
The god's white eyes widen and with a groan of stone and metal he leans down towards the little woman, his lips curling into a tighter, more savage smirk, revealing sharp gold teeth lurking behind them. “A politician is a politician, no matter what world they come from. Remember that. I do more business with your kind than with any other. What does that tell you? And me? The Consummate Politician? Hahaha. Think you can lie to a Daedric Lord? You ain't no Chosen One, dearie!”
“...” It's rare for Hermione to acknowledge being out of her depth, and she won't do it here, but when she's finally dismissed from the presence of the foul being, then she might kick herself a little. Winding up in this land called Tamriel was a happy accident to begin with, but she just had to push her luck in the interests of academia, figuring there would never be anything more dangerous than what is contained in the Department of Mysteries.
After a moment participating in a staring contest, the statue sits back, and flaps a languid hand, the sunlight streaming through the glass of the temple picking up the exquisite quality of the stone and the purity of the gold used in creating it. This is the Emperor's ‘secret’ personal shrine to Clavicus Vile which Hermione has so casually appropriated.
The Grand Deceiver grins. “Regardless, as often happens with artefacts of great power, the Stones have been drawn to Tamriel. It'll be a breeze for a mage of your talents to run along and pick them up from whatever corner they've rolled into. The job should take a day or two at most, hehehe.”
“They're not a sort of horcrux, are they?”
“No. Nothing so mundane. One might say they're the tears of one of my most naughty brothers. For a time they were flailing around a version of your world, being jangled about by the very lowest quality of miscreant. It's good they've come home, and who better to wield them than little old me?"
“Are you going to give me a clue to their locations, since you know everything, Mister Vile?”
“Hmpf, since you ask soooo politely. You won't need to leave this very palace in order to come upon the Power Stone, oh so naturally. The Space Stone is in Morrowind, as is the Mind Stone. Locate one and you'll locate the other. The Time Stone is busy floundering in backwoods Skyrim. The Reality Stone is in Daggerfall, and the Soul Stone is sitting pretty here in Cyrodiil. Now off you pop. And take my hound. He needs a good walk.”
The frightening looking marble dog standing beside its master, the frightening looking marble dog which till now had been performing a series of canine activities such as scratching it's ears, shrinks in phases until its shoulders stand level with Hermione's waist.
“Afternoon, mortal. The name's Barbas.” says the dog, his tail wagging.
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How does one apparate with a dog? This is not something Hermione has ever considered, not did she expect ever to consider it, not once in the couple centuries she intends to live. Even worse, how does one employ an Invisibility Cloak with a dog in tow. She's borrowed Harry's, but in all his adventures he had never to deal with a talking canine. At least…she doesn't think he did. Even Sirius couldn't talk as a dog.
“Seems like you're having trouble there, Miss,” woofs Barbas in a reverberating, preternatural voice. “So let me help you out before the Emperor arrives to pray to my master and catches you where you shouldn't be.”
His ‘help’ consists of transforming into a male humanoid wearing golden armour with a distinctly hound motif.
“Are you an animagus?" Hermione imagines it's unlikely, but she's here to learn, after all.
Within a helmet shaped like a hound's jaws, a pair of glowing yellow eyes narrow. “No, I'm an aspect of an unfathomable eldritch entity. Sometimes I'm a dog, sometimes I'm a pork chop. It depends on my master's mood and the needs of the moment. But let's get on with this shenanigan, shall we?”
Hermione desperately wishes for a glass of fire whiskey, but she decided to come here and talk to a foreign wizard god, so she has no one to blame but herself. She pulls Harry's cloak out of her bag. It does not cover Barbas’ feet, so he shrinks them both to child size…This is going to be quite the trip.
The Power Stone is inside the Imperial Palace, according to the Prince of Lies. But where?
“What does the Power Stone look like?” she whispers to Barbas where they lurk behind a bookshelf in the Imperial Library. She has her wand out, preparing to use Accio.
“Depending on who's talking, it's either a purple or gold gem.”
“...Excuse me?”
“Depending on who's talking-”
“I understood that part! But which one is it?” Hermione hisses, turning away, her hair flying. Arg, nevermind, she tries both of them, trying purple first because of its association with imperial majesty. Somewhere above her the Emperor’s privy explodes, a small purple gem flying through the palace, straight through walls and people's bodies, until it appears before the seeker, rather dull and sticky with blood and brick dust. And other matter. Just for curiosity's sake, Hermione attempts the same thing while she has a golden gem twirling through her mind, exploding the Empress’ privy in the process.
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“If you're shopping for antiques in Morrowind, there's only one place worth browsing.” says Barbas, while he and Hermione stand on a bridge connecting the Imperial City to the rest of the area. After the stunning success of their first heist, they decide to grab the other stones from the other provinces, and then return for the Soul Stone.
“What one place? Also, I can't apparate without knowing where I'm going.”
Barbas opens his hand to reveal one of the Power Stones. “This gives increased strength, Miss. Do you know how increased strength can be used to reach Morrowind? Here, take the other.”
Hermione takes the gold gem, then studies the dog-man. He points northeast, then enters a crouch.
“We're going to leap across the world.”
“Yeah!” Although he's a man now, Barbas barks happily and shakes his backside.
His cuteness evaporates the instant he misses the giant mushroom he was aiming for and crashes into the dark ground just beyond it, smashing into pieces. No matter, he returns to the top of the mushroom as a pork chop, where he cushions Hermione's landing. Shrieks reverberate around Tel Fyr.
“I know the guy who invented that world-leaping technique.” whispers Barbas as his companion blasts a hole in a mushroom with her wand.
“It's less a technique and more a suicide attempt.”
“That it is.” agrees Barbas, from Hermione's arms, where she hold his porkiness.
The duo land on the spongy floor of Divayth Fyr's study, immediately in front of the mer himself. Another shriek flutters from Hermione's mouth, but the amorous dark elf smirks and flashes his eyebrows.
“Now this is something that has never yet occurred to me in all my years roaming Mundus and beyond. A beautiful Breton girl falls through my ceiling? With dinner in hand? Is this a new kind of takeaway service?”
“I'm, no, sir, um, I…would…like a tour. Yes! I would like a tour of this wonderful mushroom palace of yours. I saw it from a distance and just had to come see what it was.”
“Indeed? Did an ogrim kick you over here?”
“Magic did.”
“I understand. Well, my dear, I'd be happy to give you a tour of my home. It's taken many years to perfect.”
“May I leave my pork chop here?”
“Of course.”
After carefully selecting a spot, Hermione lays the pork chop on a chair made of a giant insect carcass, and loops her arm through the ancient wizard's, going off on a fabulous tour which includes zombies and clone wives.
Meanwhile, Barbas reconstitutes himself as a man and swipes the Space and Mind Stones where they sit on a shelf, acting as paperweights. Later, he rescues Hermione from a dungeon filled with other pretty young females.
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“In Skyrim the item you're looking for will probably be located inside a dragon's stomach.”
“Oh, well, that's just wonderful.” sighs Hermione, looking a bit worse for wear after her time as Divayth Fyr’s guest. And now she's in godforsaken Skyrim, where it's cold even in summer. To be fair, in that way it's similar to Scotland, and once she realises this, and casts a few handy dandy spells, she perks up.
Barbas sets off down a stone path scattered with snow. “To kill a dragon you need a warrior.”
Trotting along after him, Hermione struggles to catch her breath in the thin, icy air. Around her, dark pine trees groan as they sway from side to side. Smoke tickles her throat. “Maybe I can just make the dragon throw up? I know a lot of non-lethal curses.”
The clatter of carts carries over the sound of the wilderness. The clamour of men and horses approaches. Hermione whips out her wand and the Cloak, but it's too late, a man dressed as a Roman centurion has already spotted them, and Barbas takes hold of her right wrist.
“Let's just see what happens…”
What happens is that they are arrested for border hopping and put on a cart, behind one in which a man in fancy clothes and a gag attempts to nudge an unconscious...person? off his shoulder. All he succeeds in doing is waking the nebulous being up.
"You're finally awake-"
Hermione looks away from the cart in front of her, to her companion sitting opposite. “We've been captured.”
“Yes.”
“This wouldn't have happened if you'd let me use Stupefy.”
“Just wait, you'll get a chance to use magic in a bit.”
The carts enter a walled town, where no one appears to be above the level of a peasant.
“Is Skyrim a backwards province?” asks Hermione, upon catching sight of the yokels.
“Yes. You should see what my master's shrine looks like here.”
“...Is it stuck in a cave?”
“So you are a clever miss!”
By now the carts have come to a stop facing a wall, and the prisoners are being prodded out. The personage who was leaning on the fancy man in the cart ahead of Hermione's is irritating the woman responsible for deciding whether he lives or dies by rapidly and obnoxiously shapeshifting. He's sent to the block, second. The first guy to be executed is someone who was even more irritating.
“What's that noise?” asks Hermione. There's a rumble in the distance. A moment later it turns to a roar. Just as the second annoying prisoner is due to get his head trimmed off his body, a black dragon falls out of the sky onto the tower in which shadow the execution is happening. A gusts of its heated breath disintegrates the ropes binding Hermione's wrists together. In a flash she has her wand out and aimed at the dragon. As it opens its maw for another deep roar, she hits it with several nausea spells all at once.
Alduin throws up all over the quad, immediately killing the majority of the Nords, who are a very weak people apparently.
“The Stone! There it is! Get it, Miss!” Barbas points at a shiny moments before he's submerged in a sea of vomit.
“Accio Time Stone!”
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“To find the Reality Stone we need to take a ship.”
“What ever for?”
“To find the place where the Stone is.”
By now Hermione has accepted certain things about Tamriel.
- It's a mad place full of mad beings.
- It is unwise to ask anyone anything.
- Many bad fates await one here.
So she and Barbas the Hound hitch a ride on a ship sailing from Skyrim to Daggerfall.
The entity, taking the form of a seal for the trip, leans over the railing as an ice bound ocean rolls past. “This is called the Sea of Ghosts, Miss. Is there anything so poetically named in your world?”
“Yes, though usually they involve mountains and the devil.”
“Ah.” Barbas claps his flippers.
“Doesn't your master want you back by now?”
“No. The longer I'm away, the more he realises how much he needs me. It's mental maintenance.”
The dock at Daggerfall is in sight when a storm rises off the sea and flings their ship onto the rocks. Hermione casts a number of life saving spells on both herself and her companion, though she ends up clinging to his back and being washed to shore that way. Thank God he's a seal. They crawl into a cave in the cliff, where a mudslide traps them.
“Welp, nothing for it but to take a wander through the dungeon...” Barbas transforms into his dog form and runs off barking, waking the entire bandit, bat, and skeleton infested place. It's a good thing that Hermione is a very accomplished witch, and most of the things in the dungeon are level one.
Near the end of ‘Privateers Hold’ sits a large chest in a prominent location, situated right between a pair of torches. Inside it sits the Reality Stone, all on its lonesome. When Hermione touches it, it begins shrieking.
“Another hand touches the beacon-”
“Just ignore her.” says Barbas, shaking his bloodstained, doggy head.
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“The gargantuan Ayleid ruin underneath the poorest city in Cyrodiil is likely where the Soul Stone will be found.”
“That's a very specific clue you have there, Mister Barbas.” It has occurred to Hermione that the human version of the entity accompanying her is not that bad looking, if the slice of face she can see through the eye slot of his helmet is anything to go by. Accordingly, she twirls a lock of hair around her finger. The dog-man fails to understand. Although, that might also be because they have just arrived at Bravil, and there are more pressing matters engaging his attention, such as the need not to be shanked by a skooma-eater.
“It's important that we enter the ruins as soon as possible.” he says.
“Aren't Ayleid ruins very dangerous?”
“Yes, but they're less dangerous than Bravil.”
However, before they dive underground, they round up as many lizards and cats as they can, and herd them into the ruins. It takes a while, but eventually every trap in the mega ruin is sprung, and Hermione and Barbas are able to reach a pillar in the centre of the ancient complex, atop which glows a small orange Stone. With all six stones (plus one extra) in hand, the duo sneak back into the Imperial Palace, there to report their success to the Child-god.
“Oooooh! The little witch succeeded! Colour me impressed,” Vile lowers his voice on the last line in a deeply sinister fashion. "Of course, you did have a lot of help from the bestest boy, didn't you?”
“Here, the Stones.” Hermione, ignoring the implication that she couldn’t have done the job by herself, goes to drop the artefacts on the plinth between the statue’s feet, but a marble hand gets in the way. She dumps the MacGuffins into it instead.
“Nice, nice, very nice,” Vile holds each stone in turn to the light, even biting one, before vanishing all of them into his realm of Oblivion, the Fields of Regret. “Now, your reward-”
Barbas growls. “Play nice, master…”
“Yeah, yeah. Here-” the Prince of Serenity conjures a silver teaspoon heaped with what looks like glittery pink sherbet, floating spoon and sherbet down to Hermione via magic. “-all the knowledge in the world.”