“I thought you knew, who indicated you here certainly must have mentioned it.” Fabrice’s voice was calm.

Tabitha held back all of her urges, clearly Fabrice wasn’t going for a fight, and striking first with no reason was not her style. Still, she felt deceived, she looked at Fiona for some feedback, but she was met was her fierce gaze. For a few seconds, they exchanged different looks, Tabitha knew what she was saying, she knew her reaction was far from diplomatic, but this was and odd situation, and she didn’t like feeling tricked by a vampire. Jacob tried to fix the situation, as the silence and awkward exchange of looks was taking too long.

“Yes, we would expect so, but since we are not from here, we rely on spells to communicate with people around here, and there must have been a problem at some point. I apologize for both their reactions, this should not affect our negotiations, as we can both help each other.” Tabitha glanced for a second at both of them, she was angry but they were serious, so she secured her dagger and sat once more, keeping a constant eye on Fabrice. As Estela’s fear began to fade, shame took place, so she sat down quickly and tried to behave. “So we get the seeds and you provide us with the information we need, is that correct?”

“I can give you some information, but I can’t guarantee I’ll know the answer to all your questions, or if this little trip will be worth the big ones.”

The ring’s voice echoed again inside Estela’s head. “Poor Tabitha, just because of that accident she can’t stand the sight of vampires. I guess this meeting is not all lost, so long as she keeps to herself.” It took some effort for Estela, but she was trying to piece things together.

“Is there anything we can do to get better answers?” Jacob didn’t want to go through all this trouble and end up with no answers.

“Since you said you don’t have time to search for anything, this is the only thing that would take little time that I want. But if you find some more time we can talk other options.”

Jacob couldn’t just say anything. He had to assess first if this was worth it. He held a laugh, as he thought Diogo would have either decided something or caused a fight. Estela began to understand the principle behind the ring. She figured she could use it to get some leverage on Fabrice, so she tried to focus on what could he really want.

“Oh so many desires. This guy has had a long life, he seen so many things, but there is one thing he truly wishes he had, the Caterum Crystal.” The voice responded to her will, almost naturally.

“So what if we can get  you the Caterum Crystal?” She said trying to ignore the unnecessary information the ring kept feeding her.

“What do you know of it?” Fabrice bend froward, suddenly taken with interest and seriousness.

“We know that you want it, maybe we could get it for you.” She knew nothing, but at least she tried to believe there was something true about her words. The others just kept calm and unaltered, they knew better, when there was unknown information they should go along with any bluff.

“Bullshit, that thing is a legend, I’ve tried countless times to find it, it’s a myth, you can’t get it.”

“You don’t believe that, and you would regret passing this chance to finally get it. So long as you offer something worth our time, we can get it.” She had a smirk on her face, the ring worked great as a lie detector.

He stared at her blankly for a few seconds, in pure disbelief that she would happen to know something about it. Then he turned to the fireplace and kept looking into the fire. What would he do? He couldn’t just pass the offer, but the trouble of getting that thing would certainly mean his involvement in this crisis, and he had hoped he wouldn’t get drag into it. Azelia’s eyes darted from one to another, trying to understand how this change in the negotiation had happened, how did she know that if she didn’t know him?

“Ok, you’re right.” Fabrice turned to her again, now standing. “With the crystal I could make something that would help you immensely, but I would still need the seeds to complete it. If you can get me both I’ll tell you what I know and build this device.”

“Deal!” She smiled. “Now tell us what information you have on it’s location and we’ll take it from there.”

He began to tell them what he knew, but not a minute latter there was a group interruption. Jacob, Tabitha and Fiona looked at each other, clearly worried.

“Did you feel that?” Tabitha asked afraid to confirm. They just nodded.

“What happened?” Asked Estela.

“Diogo and Celeste just vanished.” Jacob replied, trying to remain calm.

“What?”

“They are either dead or in another world, but either way unreachable and untraceable.”

He looked a bit disappointed. “Ok I guess, it’s a fair request. I can answer some questions and enlighten you if you can get me a bag of giza seeds.”

Tabitha knew what he asked for, and it was a strange request, but maybe she was missing something, so she looked at Jacob, expecting him to help with that. He looked at her, and tried to keep diplomacy in check.

“What is it you plan to do with that?”

“Well, you saw my toys, my creations, right? I can’t create knew things without being able to enchant them.”

“But those seeds are fairly common, why ask us for them?”

“They may be common where you’re from, but here they are almost extinct. They can only survive in the deep jungles, far from any human activity and the flower only produces the seed during a specific time of the day, and they don’t survive for more than a few hours without energy support. And finding skilled help these days is quite difficult.”

Jacob stopped a moment to think if any of this made sense. The plant was special for being a basic catalyst for enchanting magic items, but it was quite common and ordinary where he had come from. He didn’t expect the plant to demand so much energy from the planet that it could not survive here, but how did it exist here in the first place? He tried to accept it as true and play along, but there was one problem still.

“I expect you at least a location for us to go collect the seeds, as you should know we don’t have time to be searching for it.”

He pulled a map onto the table, and pointed a place in Venezuela.

“Here. Some friends told me that this place still holds some giza blossoms. So you should be able to find them here, though it may require some tracking as there shouldn’t be many more flowers left. The seeds should sprout around 15:00 local time.”

Estela considered that was too far for a quick trip, but something else bothered her. Her hand twitched uneasily when she thought about going after the plant, doubts filled her head as she considered the situation. She wondered what the others were thinking, and what should she do. She wanted to say something, but she was afraid of getting in the way. But her hand fiddled with the ring, the more she thought about this the more nervous she got, and the ring was the only distraction at this moment. She took it out and considered it’s purpose, she felt the urge to put it on, to find out what it was for. She need the distraction so she put the ring on her right hand’s middle finger.

A voice yelled in her head. “Yeeessss, finally some action.” The familiar voice filled her with fear, she reached to remove the ring, but something stopped her, she wasn’t sure if it was just the curiosity or the desire to do something.

She was so focused on the ring, she didn’t notice how everyone seemed to slow down, only the ring kept talking, normally.

“Oh, what’s this?! A diplomatic meeting! Oh the joy, so many secrets, where to begin?” Estela’s eyes were still looking at Jacob, she was too confused to take any action. “What, Jacob?! He thinks you are cute, he even wants to stay here and learn more about this world’s technology, but he wants to hide the fact that he’s afraid what Fabrice might want to enchant.”

Her heart began to race, at first she though the ring was just messing around, but slowly she considered why Diogo said for her to be careful, and what this ring could do. Meanwhile Tabitha was talking about insurances with Fabrice, but her voice was distant and sluggish. To Estela, everyone seemed slow, but the voice didn’t take a moment to stop.

“Oh, but the vampire only wants to play around, he’s actually kind, but he’s hiding the fact that everyone he sent there ended up dead or wounded by some savage beasts, far too strong for any ordinary human.” Estela barely heard the whole sentence, she kept going over the vampire word, wondering what the ring meant. ‘Was it referring to Jacob, or Fabrice?’ She looked at Fabrice, and as if the ring was engaged in a conversation with her, he said with a sarcastic tone “Yes.”

Estela taken by fear basically jumped out of her chair, causing it to slide back a bit. She pointed at Fabrice with a confused look on her face. “You’re a vampire?!”

Mixed expressions all around. Jacob and Fiona kept an eye on Tabitha, looking closely, but they appeared apprehensive. Azelia look bored, just if someone had stated the most obvious thing on Earth. Fabrice looked surprised by the sudden interruption, but didn’t seem at all confused. The problem was Tabitha, she glanced at Estela, a bit surprised, but then turned to Fabrice filled with anger. She got up, drew her dagger, a dark blue long blade with a green inner line waving at it’s center, she kept it at her side, pointing backward. “What!!??” She barked at Fabrice.

“So, you know a little bit about me, now I’m curious as to why did you seek me.” Fabrice did seem pleased to have them, certainly entertained. His expression did change from a curious observer to a more astute negotiator as he grabbed a cup of coffee.

They looked  around at each other, waiting for someone to say something relevant, but no one was sure what to say. Tabitha leaned forward meeting his eyes, and tried to analyze his reactions as she spoke on the group’s behalf. “We heard you could help us understand something about the disappearances around the world. Can you?”

He did little beside blinking once. The pause seemed very long, specially for the two scrutinizing each other. He then threw himself back at the old armchair, relaxing his stance a bit too much for the seriousness of the business. “Well, I definitely can help, but I’m very much inclined to avoid getting involved.” He said sounding quite unconcerned.

“Just to be sure, you are aware that not getting involved may result in the end of the world, right?” Tabitha’s voice struggle to remain calm. Jacob and Fiona gave each other a concerned look.

Estela didn’t know what was going on about the situation. She thought Fabrice was going to collaborate, but he seemed to be uninterested in what they needed. ‘Could he be so selfish?’ she thought. For a second she was concerned Tabitha might get angry, but she was just surprised when Fabrice simply replied a careless ‘Yes’ to her question.

Despite disliking his irrational response, Tabitha knew better how to conduct diplomacy, so she waved her head ever so slightly and resume in a serious and calm tone. “Then what makes you think you’re not already involved?”

He grimed back at her, he joined with an entertained smile the discussion, back at full attention. “Oh, but you are taking these words quite literally, aren’t you? Few beings would have the power to destroy the world, and even fewer would consider doing so. Everyone need a place to exist in, these talks about the end of the world is just crazy conspiracy talk. And if things go down the hill for this world, anyone standing aside or helping will survive.”

Tabitha didn’t like that he was enjoying this talk, it was unnerving. “So enlighten us, what do they want to do with the world that you are not afraid to step aside?”

“I never said I wasn’t afraid. But I also won’t tell you anything about it without proper incentive.”

“Oh, come on, give us something to work with here, or are going to get into trouble if you give us information?” Tabitha had a small smirk as she said this.

“You’ll probably end up finding it anyway, you seem good enough in what you do. But neutral parties should never give anything for free.” He shook his hand with his index up.

Tabitha knew Fabrice wouldn’t simple hand out the information. But negotiating with this guy would be a waste of time, and Diogo would be somewhat irritated by this, she tried to think of a way out of this. While Jacob and Fiona waited patiently observing the negotiations, Estela was getting a bit apprehensive, she felt as if something was wrong. She didn’t like Fabrice’s casual style as if nothing mattered, or even Azelia just standing by the fireplace, she felt played, and this was the wrong moment to be wandering in circles. Part of her knew they didn’t have much option, Fabrice knew something, even if he was willing to tell. Her hand instinctively slid down to her pocket where she felt the ring Diogo gave her.

They were all starving at this point, but only Estela observed the wide variety of food, the other three looked at each others suspiciously. After a minute or so like this Azelia decided to speak.

“If it will make you more comfortable you can scan the food for poison, we’ll take no offense in it.”

Jacob had a scanner built in an apparatus he carried around in his wrist, the resembled a wrist watch, bit did not tell the time.  He began scanning the food, while Tabitha decided to explain a bit, though she believed explanations were unnecessary. Estela looked at them back and forth confused.

“We appreciate you being so understanding.  But since we are eating prior to business one can never be too careful.”

“No need to explain, it’s perfectly reasonable, specially considering your host is not dinning with you.”

“Why is that by the way?” Asked Fiona intrigued.

“Well, his habits are quite eccentric, he keeps to himself most of the time, and spends a lot of time in the forge. Mostly he prefers to avoid eating with outside people, but since he likes to be a good host, he makes sure you get a fitting meal.”

After the analysis showed the food and drinks were safe, they made a quick toast to their absent host and ate to their hearts’ content. At the end Fabrice joined them, wearing a very dark red leather overall, a black shirt and a pair of jeans.

“I take it you’re all satisfied right? So now we can talk with calm. I believe it’s always better to negotiate on a full stomach. But first let me show you around.”

He took them around the castle showing different parts of it. There were some many different ambiances, for fighting, for learning and even one for kids to play, this one full of kids. Fabrice went on to explain how his family likes to keep being secluded, so they were self taught, they had some knowledge about magic, and many fighting skills. Apparently they maintained a high level of education, and after a certain age, they could opt to remain here, go to college or even go live away. Occasionally the family adopted children, or embraced people who shared their point of view. That’s how their family has grown so large.

“This here is where we study applied technology, it is very important to me. I’m a fanatic for relics, usage of magic with technology. And here we study it. At the forge we put some of these theories to practice. In fact I was so entertained with some new toys I got today that I almost forgot you were coming.”

Estela looked at Tabitha, as if to confirm their discoveries from that afternoon, but she looked firmly at Fabrice.

“Take this for instance.” He pulled out of his pocket a bronze colored stick, with a octahedron diamond crystal at the center and two spheres at the ends. “If I energize it, it begins to hover near me and turn around it’s center.”

He demonstrated it, and by his looks he was fascinated by it.

“I’ve been playing with it for a few weeks now, trying to understand the magic principle behind it, but I can’t quite get it yet.”

Jacob on the other hand was less than impressed, and more surprised to see such thing here. “Well, have you tried attacking it with magic?”

“What? Hummm no, why?”

“Because it a Diverter, it’s a defensive item used in war to protect more distracted soldiers from being hit by basic spells.” Jacob explained calmly. “It does not work very effectively because of the cost to divert a spell in energy is often too much to pay in a large scale battle. There is also the problem of where the spell goes to after, there is little guarantee, or even none, that the spell won’t end up hitting a friend. Latter on we created the Reflector a device used redirect a spell back to it’s caster, much more useful, but much more expensive and rare.”

Fabrice stared back at Jacob, wondering for a second such marvelous inventions he might have seen, then he smiled.

“Wonderful, I wish to know more, but you are here with a purpose, other than tell me stories. So let’s go to my study where we can talk more privately and we’ll see what we can do for each other.”

Night fell, but the van never came out. They speculated they might have exited through another gate, but avoided assuming anything more conclusive. When the time came, they passed through the gate, and everyone stood for a moment in awe, except for Tabitha, who had assumed this would happen. The decaying trees, and abandoned feel of the place vanished as soon as they crossed the gate, revealing a beautiful and vast garden, very illuminated. Over the first hill they saw some sort of gazebo, with some benches and a fountain nearby. A few people were engaged in a conversation over some drinks.

In front of them was a limo waiting to take them to the mansion. A young girl with fair skin and blond hair greeted them. They immediately recognized her voice from the phone, it was his secretary.

“Greetings, I’m Azelia, personal secretary of Mr. Bergin. We were not sure whether you’d be coming with your own car, but since no normal driver would not come here we decided to wait for you here.”

“Thank you, we appreciate it.” Tabitha stepped forward. “We were quite surprised when the taxi driver began to panic, without a reason, but we figured you would want to protect this place from unwanted and unprepared visitors.” Azelia just nodded confirming the statement. “Anyway, this is Jacob, Fiona and Estela, I’m Tabitha.”

“I were given to understand there would be six visitors, what happened to the other two?”

Fiona explained. “There was a problem in the United States of America with one of our clients, so the other two went there to take care of it. I hope this is not a problem.”

“Not at all, just a little extra food this evening. Come, let’s take the limo, we’ll see Mr. Bergin and you dinner should be ready in a few minutes.”

The limo was very spacious, a variety of drinks inside a bucket of ice in the center. They traveled through the garden for quite some time. It was a great sight, well trimmed bushes, beautiful flowers, fountains. Occasionally they saw people dancing, walking and talking, very casual and natural. Mansion was quite a misnomer, it was more like a castle. Azelia explained how the Bergin family was a long one, dating from 1400s, they were nobles, and despite all the wars, they remained neutral during most conflicts, preparing the territory for defense. Without active participation, they were forgotten from history, but their titles remained, and now they have this piece of land which they use their knowledge of magic to keep it isolated.

They were taken to the second floor of the castle past a huge hallway to the left wing. Oddly there was no one beside them. The end of the hall was distinctively hotter than the rest, and when the door opened the heat fled the room, trying to reach the open window. Inside a medieval looking forge contrasted with an arcane workbench and high tech computers on the other side. A strong shirtless man and a strong girl in black sleeveless shirt took care of the forge, taking metal and heating it up. One guy with long hair was working at the workbench, it glowed blue and there was some sort of mechanism on it. On the computers there was a girl with short pink hair, she seemed to be analyzing the specs of various objects.

A man, with light brown hair and a white arrow shaped beard, took a piece of metal and with a pair of pliers he twisted it around on a metal table, obviously trying to follow some blue prints on the table. Without a shirt,everyone saw his white but very strong body, but despite his strength he didn’t have a huge body, he could fit into a suit and pose as an executive without effort. Azelia walked towards him and announced his guests. He stopped playing with his toys, took off the dark glasses he wore for protections revealing his dark green eyes.

“Welcome friends, I’m Fabrice. Sorry for not being more presentable at this moment, Azelia will take you to the dinning hall while I take a shower, we’ll talk after you’ve eaten.”

Both the driver and the passenger came out of the car, arguing with each other, trying to figure out what happened. The girls quickly got behind the van and Tabitha began fussing with the lock. A few seconds latter the door opened silently and they got in, closing it behind them.

“I’m going to keep them from starting the car, you see if you find anything.” Tabitha said going to the front side of the van.

“But what should I look for?” Estela was lost, and each second more worried, but Tabitha just shrugged back at her, so she had to be quick, before something bad happened.

The inside of the van was filled with drawers and cabinets. She searched one after the other, finding papers, weapons, precious gems, jewelery and some food. Tabitha stood against the far end, using her powers to pay attention to what was happening outside. Both men were looking under the hood of the van, seeing if there was any grave problem. Despite there being no problem aside from the dent, Tabitha managed to stop them from starting the car. They were getting a bit frustrated, so Tabitha began to worry.

“Did you find anything?”

“No… I mean, I don’t know what I’m supposed to find.” Replied Estela as she opened a drawer on near the right side of the entrance. There was a brown velvet bag inside, filled with gems and stones with carved symbols, some strange pieces of metal and simple contraptions. “Could it be this?” She asked.

Tabitha came close to her to take a look. “What is that? Hummm, runic stones, strange pieces of metal. This could be what they are taking there, we should check to see if we find anything else.”

At that moment they heard a yell from outside. “And get me the flashlight, I need to see if there’s any damage to the engine.”

“What do we do?” Asked Tabitha a bit scared.

“Quick, get to the other side and stay perfectly still.”

They stood on the other side, where they wouldn’t get in the way. As the door opened, Tabitha reached for her whip, just in case this didn’t work, after all they were in plain sight. The man came in mumbling he glanced around, and went for the cabinet, got the flashlight and exited cursing a bit more.

Relieve as she was, Tabitha still was worried about getting caught, so they quickly finished looking around and left. As soon as they left, the man tried to start the van again and it worked, so both got into the van, and it vanished into the Bergin territory. They once again sat by the side of the road, waiting for the others.

“That was some old gadgets. What does it mean?”

Tabitha smiled back. “Well, either the guy is some sort of archeologist, or he is researching old forms of magic, for some unknown purpose, either way, it’s not that different from what we were already expecting.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess we’ll find out what he’s up to soon enough. We just need to wait.”

Tabitha looked once more back at the gate, grinned a bit and sat against the rock waiting. Leaves tumbling by in the wind.

They had been hiding behind some trees near the road just outside the main gate. Ever since they had left, the only interesting thing happening was a squirrel crossing the road. Estela was already showing signs of impatience, while Tabitha was just fiddling with her gear. The place was silent, and the vegetation was beautiful despite being somewhat scarce. On the other side of the gate nature seemed dead, Estela thought, observing the twisted branches of leafless trees.

“The stop is quite far from here, they’re still going to take some time to come back. I’m sure they’ll bring us something good to eat.” She kept smiling at her, she liked doing different things. “We need to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

“I think this place is suspicious enough.”

“Considering how far it is from the city, and the fact that people have an unnatural fear of this place, we can only assume it has something wrong. But since we are talking about people summoning demons, I guess we can’t avoid places like this one. But what we need to observe is if there is someone who comes into this place, and to what purpose.”

“But this is boring, we are in the middle of nowhere. This place is devoid of life, no one will even get near it, so what makes you think someone would come here? We can’t even get inside without alerting them. I don’t mean to be rude, but weren’t you supposed to be a stealthy group?”

“Diogo is the most stealthy one, Celeste’s Space bending abilities allow her a good degree of stealthiness, but the rest of us are just well trained. We don’t have great skills in staying hidden, but we do know when to take action and when to wait, a great deal when you want to keep a certain cover. It’s an important part of knowing what you are up against. So being patient comes in handy. I know I’m a diplomat by nature, by I know there are times to act, and right now we’ve got company, so we should get moving.”

Estela glanced over the road and saw very far a white delivery van coming towards the gate. “Wait, what are we going to do?”

Tabitha remained hidden behind a stone and a bush close to the road. “I’m going to try to make them stop, so we can check what they are taking. You wouldn’t happen to know some sort of invisibility spell, would you?”

“Nope, invisibility is kind of tricky, haven’t mastered it yet.”

“Anything that can keep them distracted?”

“Well, I know something that may make them ignore us, but we would have to be very discrete.”

“Ok, we’ll go with that. I’ll make them stop.”

Estela was nervous, she wasn’t so good at improvising like this, and it all seemed like an unnecessary danger. Still she chanted the spell, while Tabitha concentrated her energy.

“Arle torun iza soractos unde cafom porai metos senetra indigtes.”

With a discrete pink flash of light, the spell was done. Now it was Tabitha’s turn to do something.

“You don’t seem to be from around here, what brings you to this desolate part of the world?” Asked the barman, trying to engage conversation with the beautiful lady waiting for her lunch.
She smiled innocently at him, hiding a bit of malice. “What gave me away?! Oh well, I came from Scotland, I’ve got some business to attend at the Bergin Estate.”

She deliberately waited to see the reaction of everyone around, but she soon questioned if this was the right choice. Silence and fear took the place like a plague. People stopped eating and talking to look at her, everyone, except the guy by her side, who continued to enjoy his wine, without bothering to look at her.

“It’s a long way from home just to go to that cursed place.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s business, what can I do?! But I’ve never been there before, and everyone seems to hate that place, did they hurt you or something?”

Almost everyone in the restaurant began talking at the same. Fiona was very surprised and understood very little. She could see there was a lot of fear from that place, but it was mostly hidden behind anger. The barman and the guy next to her didn’t say anything. After the immediate commotion and people began to settle down the waitress who helped her appeared.

“What’s going on? What’s with all the yelling?” She saw everyone looking at Fiona so she approached the group at the bar. “What happened?”

The barman ignored her. “Look, you don’t need to take my word for it, but that place is bad news. There are rumors, rumors of disappearances.”

“They kidnap children and take them there.” Someone yelled from the back.

“Not only children, the group of friends who turned up dead was going to explore that place.” A woman near the window pointed out.

“Please people, settle down, eat your food.” The waitress tried to calm everyone down. Then turned to Fiona. “Look, why are you causing trouble here?”

“I’m sorry, they asked me why I was here, and I said this was a business trip, and I had to visit that place, I didn’t know anything about the place.”

“Then leave it at that please, we don’t need any trouble around these parts.” Then she vanished into the kitchen.

“Look.” The barman called. “Many weird things happen around these parts, and most people believe it has something to do with that place. No one even knows what that place looks like. All we see is that creepy forest you can see from the main gate. People say that witches live in that place sucking on young souls to keep them young forever. Others believe that zombies haunt the unholy grounds devouring any trespasser.”

Jacob entered the place mid-sentence. “Sounds like a bad place, maybe we should consider hiring an escort for your safety.”

“I don’t think that will save you pal.” He said with a little bit of condescension. “You’d do best to step away while you can.”

“Here, this is what you ordered, now leave before you cause any more commotion.” Said the waitress as she came back with the food and drinks.

“Thank you, for the food and advice. Sorry about the whole commotion.”

As they began to leave, the man in overall let out a single laugh. His deep voice finally manifested. “Don’t believe these local legends, it’s just meant to scare people off, no one was killed or vanished in that place.” A few people looked at him, mostly intrigued, as if he was the beacon of truth. “But you should know this, that place is the house of vampires, and one can never be too careful to deal with these unholy creatures.”

Some people couldn’t, or didn’t try, to contain a small laugh of disdain. And everyone just turned back to whatever it is they were doing. Jacob and Fiona smiled back at him as they were leaving. “Thank you, we’ll be prepared.” He said then turned to Fiona. “Well what do you think?”

“I think I’m happy Tabitha isn’t here with us.”

They stored the food inside their magical packs, and began the journey back.

“I guess entering their territory will mostly alert them, causing us to become less than welcome. We can check out how far does this wall go. Or maybe just stand here and observe any strange activity. If we manage to find a good observation point I can try to use some spell to see if I can look inside his house.”

“I guess…” Estela looked frustrated. “After all we have nothing to gain by going back, and we can’t just go inside.”

~~~~ // ~~~~

There was still some night left when they arrived at the school. Gates were not a problem for them, but they quickly noticed the cameras recording the halls. Should they require to engage the enemy, they would like to keep a low profile and avoid any exposition. Diogo used his powers to create an illusion field that wouldn’t show them on the camera, and did this for each camera.

Wandering the halls a little less preoccupied, they inspected every room. Nothing they could find that looked like a threat. Time passed, and they decided that they should protect the walls of the school against the eventual battle. So they took turns casting the protective barriers, by the time they were over, the sun was beginning to raise.

Celeste found the school’s library, where she began to read some books to rest a bit, Diogo just sat idly by her side, holding hands with her. His mind was half blank, he just let his brain lazily go over the details of the plan and the dream, to see if he forgot something, or maybe if he could do something else to prepare.

People began to arrive at school. First some of the faculty, and some of the cleaning team. Slowly it began to fill, until time for classes arrived, and the school was full of teens. Hiding was sort of easy. Just find a spot where no one went and create an illusion to conceal yourself. But easy was not what they had to go with, as soon as they spotted Melina they had to keep and eye on her. Diogo followed her around, dexterously avoiding touching anyone, he sat through her classes, hovering near the roof in the end of the class. Celeste kept the barriers in check, paying the constant mana cost to keep them active, and trying to relax herself to recover her energy more easily.

Morning passed without much trouble. During lunch she went to buy food nearby while Diogo kept an eye on Melina.

“What’s wrong with you?” She stopped by his side as she bit her sandwich.

“Don’t know, I have this familiar feeling that something is out of place. Some of the kids look funny at her, there seems to be some strange dynamic going on.”

She just kept on with her lunch in silence.

“Did you notice how she looks at my direction from time to time?”

“I guess she can feel your energy waves… after all you did heal her, she must remember that dearly.” She smiled to him.

“She really is powerful. How come no one noticed or even tried to train her?”

“I guess keeping these kind of things a secret is hard, and likewise is believing anything of this is true. If you take a look at their books, you can see how they are attached to science. And when science fails to explain something, or when they didn’t have the knowledge, they would just attribute anything to religion.”

“That explain why their teaching methods are so focused on the logic part of things. But they learn so many different things, how come they are not open to some abstraction?”

“I read in a history book that there was a time with firm belief in magic, but eventually anyone accused or associated with it was persecuted and killed. This was due to some wild fear, and eventually used religious views to justify it. I guess people here are scared of the things they don’t understand, which is not at all strange. But it explains a long settled fear of the unknown, and therefore the lack of interest in pursuing the development of magic.”

“If I recall correctly we also had a period without magic, where we relied on science.”

“Yes we did, but we always knew there was something powerful.”

He looked at her, then focused on his lunch. He wanted to let people know about magic.

But as time passed he had to take care of Melina, so he could worry about this world latter. They waited outside her chemistry class. Diogo and Celeste had planned to begin with a spell, and then he would reveal himself, to try and protect her up close.

The bell rang. The moment she stepped out of the class they felt a strange energy take over the place.

“What just happened?” Diogo asked her still through telepathy, while readying his bow with great hesitation.

“Someone put her under an isolation spell. No one can hear her, see her or even interact with her, she’s within a special bubble, from which she’ll emerge eventually when a certain amount of time elapses. While there she perceives time differently, and people from here tend to avoid her.”

“How come we can see her?”

“Don’t know, but if I would guess, this spell is targeted, and since we are invisible, we were not selected as target.”

“Good, then we still have the element of surprise.”

“But I can’t say where the spell came from, we still don’t know who our target is, or even if he is aware of us. We’ll have to wait to confront them.”

“Then we’d best be ready, prepare a nice focused ice shard blast away from her to that wall in the end, that’s where he should come from.”