Highfield Academy - Revenge of The Crows

Lucido had defeated all efforts to capture him, and as he had united forces with the Litch, he set about having the Litch find ways of influencing selected shades from Highfield and Vlad academies. Success strangely came from Miss Mac Death and by pure chance, or at least it seemed that way.

Her father Death had intrigued Mac Death when she saw how he controlled those who had passed away and was able to prevent further passage and interrogate those involved in the Rang invasion.

Seeking her father’s permission, Mac death enquired if he could teach her these skills and enable her to take over her father’s duties should he decide he would like another holiday. Death laughed at his daughter’s desire to learn and was pleased to teach her these skills, and in doing so it left an inexperienced Mac Death to the mercy of the skills of the king Litch who quickly had taken advantage and placed his most skilled operator within.

The moment Mac Death stepped back inside Highfield Academy, Turin, the shade king Litch had implanted, vacated the host body and took up residence within Highfield, and immediately started gathering intelligence.

It was the only way now open to illegally gain entry, and Turin had to be extra careful he was not discovered and reported to Merlin. He managed this by inhabiting one of Willet Smith one of the caretaker janitorial staff who had reason to be out in the grounds of Highfield Academy at unusual hours and frequenting places where both students and teachers inhabited.

It had been a masterful move and after several months Turin had firmly secured his position and started gathering valuable intelligence without once been suspected of his intrusion and ensuring whenever possible that no staff or students were harmed.

That said it was mother Harris who started to suspect something was wrong, as the usual behaviour, mannerisms and characteristics of selected staff started to change. Nothing over drastic only slight inflictions of altered behaviour, yet enough to draw the attention of mother Harris. It started with Willet Smith, as mother Harris had known all the teachers since they were children and had even at one time been the nanny to the Queen La-Fay’s grandmother.

Basically, mother Harris was gifted with natural empathy and had a true loving caring nature, and even though she was older than dirt, she was respected and loved and looked upon for her wisdom and volumes of knowledge.

Mother Harris noticed Willet Smith was different at least three times over a period of several weeks he had walked passed her without acknowledging her once, not even turning to smile or say his customary greetings.

Then incredibly it was as if he had suffered a mini stroke and his memory seemed to have been wiped clean as if the previous seven weeks had not existed. In time, other staff reacted in the same manner which started to build a pattern, and all had been known to old mother Harris who quietly took in all that was happening.

But it was only when Mr Claws her son failed to acknowledge her and he himself a powerful fay with vast responsibilities started acting subtly different that old mother Harris decided to take her concerns direct to Queen La-Fay.

Now Queen La-Fay held old mother Harris near to her heart and looked upon her with much love. She granted her nanny an audience and they sat quietly under a tree where mother Harris first met Catherine and together, they reminisced and talked.

“My Queen.” Said mother Harris. “I must bring to your attention something that seriously concerns me, as I have noticed over a period of some months now the staff at Highfield Academy subtlety changing.”

Queen La-Fay looked concerned, “Explain changing, and in what ways,” So old mother Harris set about doing just that and told the queen that she first noticed it had started with Willet Smith and from there he appeared to have suffered a mini stroke and lost several weeks of his memory.

This caught Queen La-Fays attention and when old mother Harris started telling her of additional staff who suffered the same fate which eventually led to Mr Claws, mothers Harris’s son who was now showing the same behaviour patterns the Queen immediately ordered Merlin to her presence.

Merlin appeared and was already concerned to have been summoned so forcibly which was most unusual for Queen La-Fay. There Merlin was informed of said events and all that had concerned old mother Harris. On learning this Merlin was now deeply concerned as it presented a serious problem in knowing whom among his staff had been infected and as to what was the nature of the infiltration.

It was decided to not inform any of Highfield staff as there was no certain way of knowing for a certainty just who was infected and as to the nature of the problem, so Queen La-Fay summoned King Thalaba.

Such summands could be extremely inconvenient, such as say one was in the shower and it would be very improper to appear stark naked as well as embarrassing. So, the person been summoned had the choice to accept immediately or to put off the call, but eventually they had to come and explain why they had not obeyed immediately.

Especially when it was a Royal summons and basically a direct order from ones Queen, none the less safety measures were in place to avoid difficulty. As was the case with King Thalaba, he was amid a battle, fighting monsters that had started attacking humans and killing them.

After a time, word had reached him via a wizard calling for help and King Thalaba had responded, it had taken him four days to find the location of the monster’s lair and gather intelligence as to what these creatures were, and why they had reacted in this way.

King Thalaba eventually learnt that the monsters were not at fault and that they had only been trying to protect their young. Human travellers had discovered their lair and had set about with the use of very basic magic to steal their eggs and grind the shells down into a fine powder so they could use it as a catalytic compound to create further magic.

This in turn angered the monsters and they retaliated for the loss of their children. Sadly, some of the monsters had become so enraged that they refused to listen to king Thalaba and it forced him to defend himself. He tried ever so much to not be forced to kill or fatally injure these creatures, yet sadly three died by the blade of his sword.

This in turn anger the king and once he had brought calm, he released the travelling humans from the stasis spell in which he had held them and then questioned them as to their actions. And explained patiently that it was they the travellers who had violated the rights of these creatures and murdered some of their young.

“Rights”, cried out the leader of the travellers, “what about our rights we are starving, homeless and driven into despair by the war between humanity and the Fay.” That made king Thalaba view their actions slightly differently.

After a few moments of thought, the king tried reasoning, “Did you not simply try to gather broken shells from hatched eggs, rather than steal and murder innocent creatures for something as basic as a shell?”

“No,” came the immediate reply, “They are not human, nor do they hold any importance, other than been mere creatures, monsters and…” He had been unable to finish when king Thalaba pointed his sword to the base of the leader’s neck.

“Of no consequence,” he angrily responded and had to fight to bring his actions under control. “These are intelligent sentient life forms, and are usually placid by nature, rarely have I in over many thousands of years heard of them harming humanity, and yet you declared war upon them forcing them to defend themselves and fight to save their children.”

The leader of the group protested. “But we were starving and desperate to gain magic to protect ourselves from the murdering Fay, already we have lost loved ones and been forced to leave our homes.”

King Thalaba understood their argument yet he knew it was flawed as royal Fay had been sent into every conflict zone to bring order and shelter to the humans, tending to their wounded and helping them recover.

It was as the group reacted and attacked King Thalaba that the queen had summoned him, only he saw through the human’s disguise, they were not human but Tebard warriors and in disguise as human travellers and had themselves been trying to escape the Royal Fay.

Incredibly king Thalaba used his considerable magical gifts and encased the entire band of Fay warriors numbering in over eighty and had them brought direct to Queen La-Fays court, so he could answer her majesty’s summoned and have the royal court pass judgment on this despicable band of murdering Fay.

“My Queen please forgive the delay in my responding and accept this gift of murdering Fay who have been impersonating humans and killing the innocent,” stated the king. Queen La-Fay looked in anger at the prisoners and had her royal magicians imprison them until a later time.

Then king Thalaba was informed the reason for his summoning and between them they decided what action could be taken. After the meeting, Merlin returned to Highfield as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place only now, he was aware that something had broken the schools defence and entered its grounds and started affecting the teachers.