= Wands High =

Chapter 34 - 15 May 1998, Friday

- Thank you for coming, guys – were Griffin's first words as he entered the "gym" – a long, almost empty hall with different types of sports gear arranged neatly along the walls. Despite being a magical academy, Innestrad provided everything needed for practicing a wide range of muggle sports as well as arts. This was also where the regular dueling practices took place. – Sorry you had to wait for me; it took some extra effort to convince the Principal that we don't need an honor guard.

- No worries, we had time to exchange a few words – Chris replied as he and Daynen swapped their guitars back. Tiberius' instrument had caught his eye immediately, and Daynen himself had also evaluated, upon seeing it, the craftsmanship of Slade's favorite resonator guitar. Except for the two of them and the two girls, the only other person in the room was Amaltiya Smith who, after greeting them, had immediately started to weave a wide circle of protective spells around the bunch. They were sitting close together on cushions she had created with a wave of her wand.

- Everything alright with Principal Ashdrake? – Smith asked her partner as she finished the protective circle and faced the group as well.

- You could say so – Griffin laughed. – She almost made me swear a Blood Vow that we won't try anything dangerous. Had to use all my oratory skill to convince her that you'd be the first to behead me if anything happens just so I'm super cautious anyway. We have six guys guarding the floor just in case, two in front of the gym doors and Ashdrake is waiting for me to report after we're done so let's get down to business.

- All yours – Smith nodded towards the four students who were looking at them eagerly.

Griffin waved his wand creating a cushion for himself and sat down facing the others.

- First of all, guys, thanks for taking the time to be here, we appreciate it – he began. – I was probably way too brief with the request but we had some stuff to clear out of the way first as you just heard. To explain the reason why you're here I'll have to start from a little far back. Mal and I have been working the case that brought us at the school for a couple of months now. It involves several people, of whom two are supposedly escaped convicts, trying to track down a number of very old magical artifacts. Up until now we barely had any clues about the real nature of those objects, nor their exact number, but last night's events brought us unexpectedly closer to discovering that.

- So it wasn't accidental... - Hermione muttered to herself, then added louder: - The fact that all of us were so unnaturally tired had something to do with that, right?

- We have every reason to believe so, Ms. Granger – Griffin nodded. – By the way, is it okay if I call you Hermione?

- Sure.

- We've been working with Professor Phaedros and Professor Elliastos every night for the past five days trying to detect some leftover energy or to discover a way to make these objects resonate somehow and reveal how many are around, if any. Thanks to Phaedros we managed to narrow down the options to three – and last night we finally caught a hint of a very specific type of magical energy related to a group of objects mentioned in several different sources under different names, but most commonly as "Vox Magica". It's a bit of an obscure knowledge mostly unknown even to great wizards and witches, it seems. And there isn't a lot of information either, but most of the sources were unanimous about the number of objects being either three or five. Each of them seems to have a different ability and used together they supposedly triple each other's power.

- What kind of power are we talking about? – Orianna asked.

- That's also unconfirmed but the most likely options are energy collection and storing, tuning into specific set of abilities and also, opening a pathway to... hmmm, not exactly a different dimension but something like a "pocket" in the fabric of reality that may enable the user to do Merlin knows what.