Early the next morning, when Altair arrived at the Great Hall, he saw a huge notice posted outside.
The general meaning was that a new dangerous creature had appeared deep within the Forbidden Forest. From this day forward, no student of any year was allowed to enter the forest without permission. Anyone discovered doing so would face the severe punishment of expulsion.
One had to understand, if an underage wizard was expelled from school before graduating, their wand would be snapped, and they would be forbidden from using magic ever again.
Compared to a harmless deduction of house points, that kind of punishment was more than enough to make every young witch and wizard keep their distance from the Forbidden Forest.
Even the Weasley twins lost all desire to sneak into the woods after seeing the notice.
Harry and Ron exchanged a glance. They were planning to go ask Hagrid for information. As keeper of the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid was bound to know things no one else did.
Hermione was curious too, but she had no intention of investigating together with them. She merely thought that if Harry and Ron found out the reason, she would go ask about it afterward and then tell Altair.
After finishing the morning's classes, Altair returned to his dormitory and exchanged for an ancient piece of parchment from the system space.
This thing was from the same set as the weather-recording parchment from before. They had both once been used by some Elf to record weather data, and Altair had spent ten story points to exchange for it.
After that, Altair took out the self-writing quill, covered it with his mental power, and began fabricating another story.
[Recorded in the Third Age, year 3019, June 18.
Today, we escorted "that thing" to the pass of Cirith Ungol. Once we pass through here, we will enter Mordor...
Perhaps because we are nearing Mordor itself, my heart has grown more and more tense.
Along the way, we encountered many enemies, including a Balrog, dragons, the Watcher in the Water, and more. Many companions have left us forever, but we have not given up...
What I did not expect was that today we encountered it... or rather, her... once again.
Shelob.
She is the last offspring of the ancient evil spirit Ungoliant, born in the First Age, a spider-shaped malignant spirit...
Like me, she is an ancient relic who has lived through three Ages...
Fortunately, when Frodo departed Rivendell, the Elves gifted him a short blade and the Phial of starlight...
...
In the end, we defeated her, but she fled back into her tunnels. For safety's sake, we could only leave the pass and continue on toward Mordor...
In order to get through the Orcs' patrol lines, we chose to use Animal Potion. Although "he" betrayed us, one must admit that his achievements in alchemy are beyond compare...]
"Whew!"
Altair wrote for a long time. Only after filling the entire parchment did he finally stop.
On the parchment, he recorded Shelob's origins and history in great detail, while also revealing a few more things about Gandalf.
Of course, he also hinted at Saruman in a subtle way, though he did not state his name outright. Still, he gave a very detailed description of the effects of Animal Potion.
He intended to find an opportunity to let Snape obtain the brewing method for Animal Potion.
That way, with Shelob's existence as proof and Animal Potion as additional evidence, it would be more than enough to establish the authenticity of the story.
And through that, he could also draw out the existence of Saruman, the evil wizard who had betrayed the side of justice.
Perfect.
"But how am I supposed to get this parchment into Dumbledore's hands? Shelob has only just appeared, and suddenly a parchment recording her is discovered. That would be a little too much of a coincidence..."
Altair pondered for a moment, then thought of Quirrell.
Perhaps he could hide this thing in Quirrell's office. Once Quirrell was exposed, Dumbledore would definitely search the office, and then he would naturally find the parchment.
And at that point, even if Dumbledore became suspicious about the origin of these parchments and sensed something odd about them, the blame could simply be pinned on Voldemort.
"Heh heh."
Altair let out a thoroughly ill-intentioned laugh. He was still too weak right now. He had to keep his head down.
After putting the parchment back into system space, Altair decided to wait for a suitable time before hiding it in Quirrell's office.
"Then there's the matter of story points. After exchanging for things several times, I only have fifty left now. But the reward for the main quest won't be issued until the end of this term..."
"And the side quests still haven't triggered. I should probably start testing what conditions are needed to activate them, though in any case, they'll probably be tied to the main plot..."
Altair glanced at the calendar beside him.
Today was October 1.
Because of Altair's interference, the plotline where Harry joined the Quidditch team was already gone. And last time, when Altair caused Harry and the other two to lose points, he had not gained any story points either. So he guessed that earning side-quest story points was probably connected to the Philosopher's Stone plot.
If that was true, then the next possible opportunity should be the Halloween feast on October 31.
"There's still one month left... and I still need that troll..."
Altair thought it over and finally decided to wait until Halloween to see whether any extra side quests would appear. If not, then his only option would be to keep earning points and wait for the unified settlement at the end of term.
Now that he thought about it, after two months at Hogwarts, Altair had already earned a total of 105 bonus points.
Just as he was still mulling things over, the dormitory door was suddenly pushed open. Altair looked up and saw Malfoy and the other two walking in, talking and laughing together.