Elder Blood Witcher 447 Start Of The Final Task

Not long after he sits down does the music start, chipper trumpets alert the large crowd to the entrance of the clearing where Fleur is led out in-front of everyone by Madam Maxime, she is followed by Dumbledore who leads Harry and Ciri.

Reima looks over at the judges and sees that Crouch had been replaced by Minister Fudge... The man notices his focus and gives him a nod and a smile. Reima can only nod back at him with a neutral expression.

With all the champions present Dumbledore straightens his back and starts speaking to the crowd after making the music stop. "Silence! I have instructed Professor Moody to place the Tri-Wizard cup deep within the maze, he is the only one who knows of it's exact location to prevent cheating of any kind. We also have Auror's and Hogwarts staff patrolling the outskirts of the maze to prevent any outside interference... Should a Champion wish to leave the maze they only need to shoot up red sparks and we will come to collect them. The goal for this task? To simply touch the cup. The first one to touch the cup will be brought back here and declared the Tri-Wizard champion!" he shouts and the crowd erupts in cheers and applause. He turns and flicks his wand at one of the stadium walls revealing a large taut white fabric, which starts to display the areas around the champions. "As we have realised our mistakes of the Second Task we have decided to use these "Observers" to watch our champions progress." he says.

Dumbledore then gathers the champions to give some foreboding words about how "People change within the maze"... Reima can hear this clearly and snorts to himself which has those near him look at him weirdly.

Once he's talked with the champions he lets the audience know the order of who's going. First is Harry, then Ciri and then Fleur. He begins to countdown however as soon as he starts Filch lets off the cannon, signalling the start of the Task.

Harry takes one glance back at Hermione before slowly walking inside the maze, his knuckles white as he grips his wand.

Reima sends a nod to Ciri and Fleur as he leaves the stage to begin the plan. No one notices as he quickly makes his way out and into a hidden area to blink away, a flash of Turquoise light reveals the location he'd appeared... Harry Potters room, he doesn't waste any time and quickly tears open the boys trunk and retrieves the Cloak of Invisibility, this should be powerful enough to prevent people from discovering his magical aura... Of course he'd need to layer scent, sound and other miscellaneous charms over it to makesure it's fool proof.

The cannon goes off again, signalling Ciri's turn to delve into the maze, she sprints inside with her staff in hand. While she didn't intend to get to the cup she had to make it look convincing enough for everyone.

She's actually impressed at the maze itself, it moves like a sentient being and she isn't sure but she suspects it's changing the path subtly on it's own...

A few more minutes of walking reveals her first enemy... A troll...

The audience watching gasp at the fact the champions would have to face something as deadly as a mountain troll. Hermione turns to Harry's feed after seeing the troll but see's he hadn't come across anything deadly yet. However the crowd watching Ciri shout in surprise as they hadn't expected to see something like that!

Ciri back away slightly from the troll as it's towers over her with a club in hand, it seems to give a gurgled chuckle as it approaches her. She surprises everyone by grinning at it, she spins her staff and flings a dark red fireball at it's head, the troll raises it's arm to try and stop it but misses and allows it to explode on it's forehead... It's body falls to the floor without a head before the smoke even clears.

Ciri mutters to herself "Easy" while stepping over it it's corpse, not knowing that the Observer had picked up her words for the audience to hear.

Fleur who hadn't even entered the maze yet isn't surprised at this as she'd seen the progress she'd made with Rei's personal magic called Pyromancy. She herself wished to try and learn it but he refused as he'd need to be there to train her otherwise she'd likely ignite her soul entirely and kill herself. She wasn't jealous as that was a pretty good reason not to attempt something she probably wasn't ready for yet. Though she wished Reima would leave something more permanent for her...

She jumps as her thoughts are interrupted by a cannon alerting that it's her turn to enter the maze, she has a determined face as she sprints inside in a similar manner that Ciri had.

Reima had just returned to the stands as she's leaving, he gives her a wave that she probably didn't manage to see while watching the feeds with interest. Luckily a couple people next to him erratically explained what Ciri had just done.