Muriel walked straight toward the maze's master plan, where the Weasley Twins were crouching in front of the drawings, arguing heatedly about something.
Beside them sat a huge, humming silver metal box.
This was the latest alchemical product jointly developed by Dumbledore and Douglas-
the first prototype of the "Mermish Language Automatic Translator."
The machine was extremely cumbersome, and its core relay unit had to be placed at the site of the conversation.
Several slender magical wires extended from the box, connected to three compact sound-transmitting earpieces resembling Muggle earphones.
Fred, George, and Muriel, the merpeople's chieftain, each wore one.
Muriel let out a long string of hoarse, peculiar Mermish sounds, like metal scraping against metal.
After a brief delay, an emotionless synthetic voice with a metallic quality sounded in Fred's and George's earpieces:
"...These are non-native species, the Crying Siren and the Dead Current. I know your important figures have already reached an agreement with them. But agreements are one thing, and technology is another.
"The resonance frequency of your stone-wall runes will interfere with the Siren's singing, turning its passive defense into indiscriminate mental attacks.
"The residual magic of that current will render your land wizards' conventional spells ineffective. All of this will cause the competition to spiral out of control."
"Oh, so these are user experience and technical compatibility issues!"
Understanding dawned on Fred.
"Brilliant!"
George's eyes lit up.
"That's like giving us two natural, high-difficulty dungeon stages!"
As Muriel listened to the strange terms coming through the translator, a measure of approval appeared on her face.
She realized that although these two young men seemed frivolous, they truly understood the essence of this maze's design.
So she offered a more constructive suggestion:
"I propose integrating part of the course with our merpeople's Prayer Sanctuary.
"The hydrological