“Ailyn Shrier, real name unknown, a student of the Martin House during her fifth year, exposed to a lethal dose of Kandera Wyvern tailbone powder mixed with Kekugora spores, had been showing no signs of life the second day she was in the academy hospital. Healers called it around one and a half weeks ago.” back in Professor Kapur’s room at the Grant Academy Hospital, Benjamin Flake, the head of campus security read from a pile of files in his hand: “Igor Vankov, real name unknown, a student of the Hellbruck House during his seventh year, found injured after the breakout of that shapeshifting creature, his wounds were from various weapons and human spells and he’s shown symptoms of toxins in his body as well, he’s still in the hospital under protective watch. But his injuries were too severe and there is no way to tell when he’ll wake up.”

“What about the others? The students in his memory? The ones working for Lady Vyn?” Professor Randall Collins, the Headmaster of the Anderson House asked.

“Katrina Bloomberg, eighth year student of the Martin House; Lia Vyn, second year student of the Martin House and Gregory Hanson, fifth year student of the Anderson House. ” Benjamin Flake shook his head: “All of those names are in the missing students list.”

“Vyn … any relationship with this lady Vyn?” Glenda Grimes asked, then she looked at Professor Dorothea Clarkson: “What about Assistant Professor Vyn? Do we have a reason to be concerned?”

“It’s just a name, Grimes.” Professor Dorothea Clarkson shook her head and replied with a hardened and cold voice, showing that she did not want to continue this line of conversation.

Professor Barnes tried to back Glenda Grimes up: “Vyn is not a common name, and we did find something suspicious about his cohorts and his doing...”

“Then come back to me when you have concrete proof that we can take a careful look at. I will NOT let you subject one of my best students and researchers to this kind of baseless accusation.”

“That’s enough.” Professor Kapur gently raised her voice: “This is not productive. Let’s get back to the students - or the spies sent by this … this Lady Vyn. Do we have any idea on where they could be?”

“No, but from the look of their dormitories, it looked like they left by their own will, but in a hurry.” Benjamin Flake sighed and answered: “We are running analysis on every little piece of evidence we found, but don’t get your hopes up. Try to break that prisoner slash agent of yours, there might be better intelligence from that route.”

“Can we know where this Eric Partizan is now?” Professor Barnes asked.

“He’s somewhere safe, under my protection. I’ll share with you once he feels safe enough with me.” Professor Dorothea Clarkson said: “Apparently, he has more information he’s not shared with me. For example, as a Xen magic user, he apparently knows a lot about the operations different groups had been running in the academy. All he’s told me so far is that he wants a deal and full protection. And he’s quite paranoid of my revealing where he is to anyone.”

“And that remains the same, yeah?” Professor Barnes asked: “And can I ask you to keep this information with you, and only share it with members here in this room when he’s ready?”

“Yes. Save your worries and concerns, it’s not the first time I handle sensitive information.”

“So, what’s next?” Professor Randall Collins sighed and asked: “We’re not here to grill each other on our abilities and commitment to keep things private, okay? We need plans for actions. Tony, you’ve been spending quite a lot of time with that prisoner, what have you found out?”

“Something about the tunnel.” Professor Barnes sighed and said: “He’s still trying to milk this as much as possible, or that he did not trust the cage’s ability to block off the effects of the gag curse. The tunnel was apparently a re-fashioned crack from the stacked planes we have in the student hunting ground. It’s far from stable and behaves like a tunneling space across the planes between the hunting ground and some remote realm on a remote planet, the name and coordinates of which only certain high level handlers have access to. He doesn’t know where that creature came from, he just knows that it’s been there for quite a while. And to maintain that tunnel’s stability as well as keeping that creature stable and dormant, these groups need to continuously pump energy stones into it. The creature needs to feed, and the tunnel’s stabilizing array needs an energy source.”

“Lauren Biggins.” Professor Dorothea Clarkson and Professor Randall Collins said at the same time.

“Yes, exactly.” Professor Barnes looked at Benjamin Flake: “And speaker of whom, where are we at tracing her?”

“She’s alive, that I’m sure.” Benjamin Flake stretched and said: “But she’s been hidden.”

“You mean … she’s hiding?” Professor Kapur asked.

“No, she’s hidden.” Benjamin Flake shook his head: “By someone other than herself. From what we could tell from the effect of the tracing spell placed on her when she escaped - she as a member of the administration knows how to disable it completely and cleanly because she was one of the architects of that array. But she didn’t do so. Instead we detected a lot of very faint indications that something general purpose and powerful is at play here - someone had her, and they’re hiding her. And we don’t wanna poke too hard - ”

“Because they might notice your attempts.” Professor Barnes nodded.

“Bingo.”

“But we’re running out of time.” Glenda Grimes said with a heavy frown: “The effect of that tracing spell fades really quickly.”

“Yes.” Benjamin Flake smiled: “But, apparently she’s also keeping it alive. Interesting, huh?”

“Which means she’s kept by a hostile force.” Professor Dorothea Clarkson said: “Can you find out where she is roughly? Even just a general location or coordinates.”

“Trying that. But it’s tricky, and we will need an expert.”