After expending enormous effort and digging up more than a dozen wizard graves, Mary Thompson and the other investigators finally scraped together a few wands that could still be used.
A wizard immediately wanted to cast a Portkey spell to leave Britain, but Mary stopped him.
"Rescuing the Goblins is a mission we have to complete. For that, we need to act as one. Any extra move could get us discovered."
Besides, Mary did not entirely trust the remaining wizards. They had all been sent directly by the Confederation, and none of them knew one another well. No one knew whether Murphy had planted a spy among them.
And so the wizards who wanted to leave were half-coerced into agreeing to the rescue plan.
Led by the Goblin Gold Buckle, they arrived at the outskirts of a manor.
"This used to be property of the Malfoy family, but later, supposedly after they sided with Murphy, it was converted into a Goblin factory," Gold Buckle said, pointing at a building in the distance.
"Some of my people are imprisoned here. I heard they make the Goblins work day and night without rest, forging metal for wizards."
"Forging metal?" Mary frowned. "What does Murphy want to do?"
"I don't know, but we should stop him!" Gold Buckle said.
"But how? These wands are too old, and they don't belong to us. They're terribly awkward to use," Mary said. "If we fight head-on, we may have a hard time winning."
"There aren't many wizards in the manor, because the Goblins don't have wands. The wizards think they can keep them under control," Gold Buckle said. "We only need to sneak in, knock out one or two guards, and let my people out. It won't be hard."
"How many Goblins are here?"
"There should