POV Rio
I waited for a few days before doing anything else just to see if anything related to me was said on the news or if I was suddenly under surveillance. That was a shock to me when I first realized my background. I wasn't under surveillance. Apparently, the US Government took the agreement seriously and avoided interfering with or monitoring my life. Now, I was positive that once I left the forest, they would keep an eye on my movements. Or at least I thought they would. But apparently I was wrong, or they are good enough to avoid the senses of both one of the greatest secret agents in fiction and the paranoid and conspiracy-obsessed Victor Sage. Which I suppose is possible, but I felt it was unlikely.
Regardless, I booked a flight to Greece. And I was flying first class. Nobody would suspect a thing, as the Pines family is old and known to have tax-free status, so obviously, I would have a decent amount of wealth available to me. And if they knew the truth, then it still wouldn't raise any eyebrows. The only suspect thing would be taking a trip to a little-known island in Greece. But then again, I am a recently emancipated teenager with a lot of money. So some splurges here and there wouldn't be out of place.
I spent the entire flight coding Minecraft. I didn't need to rest until I got where I was going. The fact was that I expected to take quite a while to find the temple. It was also possible that without an earthquake, I would never find it. But I was willing to accept that. It was also possible that the temple was already looted and nobody talked about it. I sure wouldn't reveal I discovered the temple.
After the long flight, I took a cab to the northern coast and rented a hotel room. Then I took a quick 4-hour nap and started my search.
Two Weeks Later...
Okay, so I might have underestimated the difficulty of finding the temple. And also slightly overestimated my own abilities. But after two weeks of searching, I finally found the temple. I had found the outside, but I had yet to find the entrance. I could confirm it was there, thanks to the marble found jutting out of a coral reef. As well as some scans that picked up a cavity near me. But before I could go back to the sea to find an entrance, I was temporarily distracted.
[Victor Sage: 100%]
[Getting New Template]
[New Template Found ---> Harry Potter]
[Harry Potter: 8%]
'Oh baby, now that's useful.'
The gear I got made my mouth water. I got the Elder Wand, the Invisibility Cloak, a two-way mirror, the famous Firebolt Flying Broom, a complete Hogwarts syllabus with accompanying spell books and needed equipment, and the clothes that Harry Potter had worn through the years. Every single item had its use. I could use the spell books to assimilate faster, and the gear included alchemy supplies, which would be amazing to have. The mirror would be great for unhackable communications, the wand would be great for magic focus, and it even empowered spells by a decent 25%. The cloak was... Interesting. Against technology, I was basically undetectable, at least according to the system inventory. But certain creatures could see right through it, and it was theoretically capable of hiding me from Lady Death, but I wasn't very confident in that, since a simple poltergeist can see through it. And of course, the broom gave me great mobility that is hard to detect, as it makes no noise and won't appear on most radars.
I chose to sidetrack myself a bit to increase the assimilation, as I thought that some spells might be a bit useful. In this case, I wanted to learn Apparition so I could escape the temple should it collapse while I was in there. This cost me another week of constant training, but I felt it was a necessary skill to have. Teleportation was immensely powerful, and while Apparition can't be used in combat easily, it can be used to escape a dangerous situation.
Once I learned Apparition, I went back to the temple and started looking for an entrance. It didn't take long to find that there wasn't one at this point. As such, I would have to improvise. In this case, I would make an entrance. To avoid stability issues, I made sure to come from below. Which wasn't that hard, as I had already discovered a place where I believe the entrance to the temple used to be, and the scanners I was using indicated there was a tunnel I could use, assuming I could slip through. But that's where my detour came in especially handy. Apparition is based on somewhere I had been to, or somewhere I can visually see. So all I had to do was make a small hole that I could see through. And that is something I could do.
Once I had made the hole, it was simple enough to get a good look at the area I was looking at and then grab the Elder Wand and cast the Apparition spell. It was unpleasant as always. Like being compressed massively and then squeezed through a small hole and then quickly returned to normal. I won't deny that the first time I succeeded in casting the spell, I puked. But I had gotten used to it enough that I didn't have to empty my stomach.
Once I was through, it was simple to swim through the tunnel into the oxygen-filled room where the treasures were located. It was majestic. The old bronze statues and treasure-filled chests are placed throughout the room. With a massive statue of Alexander the Great sat on a throne reminiscent of Zeus sitting on his throne in the Temple of Zeus. I recorded the room in its entirety so I could rewatch it whenever I wanted. It was also so that some record of this place would exist. Once I was done with that, I started taking everything. And I mean everything. Anything I could move was taken.
By the time I was done, the only thing left was the structural support pillars. I took all the decorative ones. I also took the statue of Alexander. By the time I was done, I had nearly filled half of my entire inventory. Which was another nice thing. Weight didn't matter; all that did matter was size. I even scored a few magical items. Which unlocked a perk of the system.
[Detected Magical Item: Would You Like To Absorb Item?]
[YES] [NO]
"Absorb? What does that mean?" I ask aloud.
I opened the system and tapped on the term absorb, which was highlighted, to get an idea of what it meant. And when I read it, I almost instantly said yes to the absorption, but I stopped myself to see what item it wanted to get rid of.
[Sharp Sword x1]
[A sword that has been enchanted to be extra sharp.]
'Yeah, that's neat but not really worth it.'
I let the item get absorbed and gain a little bit of extra inventory space. It wasn't much, like 10 cubic centimeters, but it was important to know I could do this. After that was done, I collected the other magic items but didn't absorb them right away to test if I could do so at any time, and I was correct. Once a magic item entered the inventory, I was given the option, but if I said no, I could at any time afterwards select the item in my inventory and select the suboption of absorb item. I left the temple with 1 more cubic meter of inventory, as I didn't want to bother keeping most of the magic items, as they were really weak or just not as valuable.
I kept a single dagger that had three enchantments on it. It had Toughness, Sharpness, and Blood-Drinker. Toughness made the dagger more durable and kept it from decaying over time. Sharpness was self-explanatory. And Blood-Drinker was very useful; anyone stabbed by it would not spill any blood; instead, the blood would be drunk/absorbed by the blade. Preventing any evidence from being left behind. I was turning into more and more of a deadly assassin. But I was okay with this.
I also kept one other magical artifact, and it was the Moonlight Key. According to its description, it was a magical key to an ancient vault. Where that vault was is a mystery, but I was okay keeping the item until I find where it's used. I was used to picking up random items and possibly never using them. But that was my inner hoarder speaking.
Once I was done looting the temple, I had to figure out how to deal with the temple. I was torn about destroying such a historic building, but I also knew it needed to go to avoid any chance of it being linked back to me. Many of the things I looted would be sold, and if this temple is eventually discovered, it wouldn't be hard to link my visit and eventual discovery of various ancient Greek artifacts. That would put a target on my back for many. If it were just that bioweapons developer, then that wouldn't be a problem, but I would bet my left kidney they worked closely with Hydra or were even a subordinate to them. And no way in hell am I going to risk being targeted by Hydra this early.
Now, I could be overreacting, and there was actually no threat to leaving this place be. But is the risk worth keeping a building that would collapse on its own even without my intervention? I feel it isn't. And as such, I chose to destroy the temple. Doing so wasn't that hard. One good explosion would bring the entire place down. The place was primed to fall apart any minute anyway. So I just sped things along with a few grenades. Then, once the ceiling gave out, I apparated back to a point I had chosen. A small underwater cave. It was in an area where I couldn't be seen until I left it.
Once I was out, I returned to the hotel and started making my preparations to leave. I had been in Greece for almost a month, and I felt I could go home. But I also figured I should finish the quest I started. Tanzania was a bit away, and there were many issues with just going there right now, but you only live twice once. So I booked a flight to Tanzania. Even if Pandora's Box wasn't in Tanzania, I could always just enjoy the sights.
---------------------
Author's Note:
So I'm back again to explain some things and decisions I made in the story so that I don't have to keep explaining them in the comments. Several people have complained that the loot in the temple belongs to Greece or that Rio shouldn't have donated the artifacts he couldn't sell to the British Museum.
To start with the first claim. No, the Temple was constructed during the Empire of Alexander the Great, and for those who don't know, Alexander wasn't Greek; he was Macedonian. Moreover, he conquered the Greeks or otherwise subjugated them, and this fictional temple was built in the region that would, in the far-flung future, become known as Greece. At the time, it was possibly an abandoned colony of Sparta or a sparsely populated colony. Greece has as much a claim to the temple as Egypt does, as both were conquered by Alexander the Great and ruled over the island at one point or another. Or maybe it belongs to Carthage, as they founded a settlement there after the Greeks abandoned it.
Beyond that, this story has Lara Croft in it, which means the laws around discovering ancient temples and the like are gonna be very different from our world, as we don't have ruin spelunking daredevils finding lost civilizations.
As for destroying the temple, that is very simple; Rio needed to cover his tracks and prevent anyone from ever finding the temple and possibly tying it back to Rio. He could have kept the temple around, but that was an unnecessary risk that would be illogical to take. The movie this temple is from relates to a super virus that could wipe out all of humanity. And minor spoiler: that group searching for it is part of Hydra in this story. So no, he's not gonna leave loose ends.
Now, lastly, it doesn't matter who Rio gives the spare artifacts to. If you don't want it to be the British Museum, then use your imagination that Rio gave it to some other museum. Nobody has rights to the artifacts, as there is no successor state to Alexander's Empire; therefore, Rio gave them to whoever was the most convenient. In this case, it was the British Museum, which was near Lara Croft's Manor.
I will add that giving it to Greece would have been very stupid at this time anyway, as Greece was and to some extent still is suffering from massive corruption and government inefficiency; the artifacts would have never made it to a museum; they would have been sold on the black market for whichever got to them first.
Lastly, Rio isn't going to let magical artifacts fall into a random person's hands. He's gonna use them or destroy them rather than risk some whack job using them for evil or for tracking Rio down. Rio knows little about the magic in Marvel, so he has to be extra cautious.
Another thing that got brought up a lot was why Rio didn't get the Resurrection Stone from the Harry Potter Template when he got the Invisibility Cloak and Elder Wand. My answer is pretty simple. I didn't want to add it. The Stone is hardly defined as to what it can and cannot do. At best, it would become a glorified paperweight, as it would be completely useless in the Marvel Multiverse.
What I mean is that the rules of death vary massively between Harry Potter and Marvel. It doesn't seem to bring someone back to life, or at least not really, as they are not ghosts but not zombies; I would call it more of a fake spiritual echo than a real resurrection. It just wouldn't work, as that isn't how death works in my stories, and even if it did work, it would be instant game over for Rio, as Death in Marvel is an evil God that loves killing people. Like, she is a straight-up villain that caused Thanos to go insane and attempt to wipe out half of all life in the universe, and she did it for shits and giggles. You can be certain that if Rio messes with death, she will instantly appear and kill Rio.
As for the Master of Death, no. Just no. In no situation do I think having three mediocre artifacts can make you the ruler of death itself, especially not in the Marvel Multiverse. So rather than have to deal with that mess, I chose not to have it come with the Harry Potter Template. If you don't like it, you don't have to read. Or you can write your own story. Sorry this Author's Note is so long, but I felt I needed to add this so people can stop commenting about it and to explain my thought process behind all of this. Until next time, Ciao.