Merlin woke up on the day she was to cross the channel. She quickly took a bath. And then spent the hours before leaving in preperation. First were her goods. In a bottom less small sized backpack(looking) she had food, water, medicines and potions , her extra clothes, money, runes, and her spare armor. In her belt she carried combat, runestones, essence of ditany, two vials of Pheonix tears, and her precious magic holder runestone vials. The magic holders stored excess magic which could be used to refill and restore a witch/wizard's magic in a moment during emergencies. Her versions were charged by ambient magic, although she knew how to draw a person's entire magic into the stones.

Next came her clothes. She wore comfortable cotton underwear. Her trousers were Basilisk leather specially made for combat. She wore a basilisk leather woven in stripes of cotton shirt, over which she wore a dragon hide leather hooded jacket, with a mask that protected the lower part of her face as well as protecting her from toxic vapors and other such hazards, leaving only her eyes, which were covered with a specially treated magical goggles that were impervious to anything but the most lethal of curses. The goggles also provided her with a variety of information, including her health, weather conditions, distance, targeting sights for combat, and a limited situational awareness that made her aware of her nearby surroundings,all without overwhelming her. Her goblin friends had truly overdone themselve when she had asked for just a goggle to help her in bad weather or combat. Over the jacket she wore her belts at the waist.

Last came her boots. She wore dragon hide and basilisk leather outer and a inner sole made of the best acromantula silk ankle length combat boots. The boots had runes carved in them to keep her feet comfortable no matter the outside conditions, and thus she could fight , run and do just about anything while wearing them.

And finally came her weapons.

She had two small silver daggers in the holsters in each boots.

A pair of long goblin daggers in her shoulder holsters.

A brace of throwing knives, and small chinese made smoke bombs in a second combat belt, which could easily be taken and used by her.

And finally her wands.

Her secondary wand- 10 1/2 inches, cedar and pheonix feather core was a ollivander's wand, which she carried in the back holster near her waist.

And her main wand, creation of beauty and her first gift. The woman, Yurumbe Deckard had been a young and rich emigre who had been married off to her first proposer, an english buffoon named Sidney Deckard , who had visited her native country of Yakota in the new world , and exiled for trying to make a wand, as only men were allowed to be wand makers.

Within a month of marriage, Sidney deckard was dead, leaving her all her properties.

Merlin had met her in the months following Yurumbe inheritance of all properties . The friendship that they had formed during the special construction of her custom made

multicore, multi wood , multi binding wand had quickly turned into passionnate affair and more. It still made her tingle with pleasure remembering her time with Yurumbe.

The wand woods were Elder, Yew and Frigg tree. The core were pheonix feather, basilisk scale and dragon scale gem, all dipped in basilisk venom catalyst and woven with threstal hair, and coated with mithril as the final component.

The result of all this was that her wand was one of the most powerful wands ever created. It made her magic even more powerful and precise.

Her main wand was in her right wrist holster, ready to be drawn in less than a second when necessary.

Once prepared, she had lunch and took a nap.

~ the unknown slytherin~

Merlin looked at the water in the dawn light, the sun slinking through large white clouds, casting the world into a grey light, with the sea a stormy dark calm, as if waiting like a predator waiting for the perfect spot to kill its prey. Knowing what she knew about the nature of sea and storms and the perils ahead for her, she figured it was probably doing just that.

' Are you ready to go?' asked a gruff voice.

The voice was that of the person the bar keeper had talked about.

He had introduced himself only as the Boatman and little else. He did however tell her that while he would take her across the channel, she was unlikely to find any shelter in the isles as except for Hogwarts, Hadrian Magical University in Ireland, and Sancta Magica in Wales, all places were under Slytherin's ( or his master/ patron's, as she suspected ) control and aside from Hogwarts, the others were under seige even now.

She had listened to him and then firmly said in a voice that brokered no arguement that she'd still cross the channel. And here she was now.

Turning to the man, she replied, ' Yes. Lets go'

They continued on to a medium sized sail yatch and set sail soon after that.

~ TUS~

The first sign of trouble happened near the mid way across the channel. A storm of dementers blackened the sky, swiftly moving to swoop down upon the boat.

Merlin seeing the dementer horde, shouted to the boatman

' Keep going, I'll deal with these'.

Saying that she stood up, flicked out her primary wand, and then concentrating on the memories of her first successful spell crafting attempt, pointed the wand at the horde and cast the spell

Expecto Patronum!

A hummingbird erupted out of the tip of her wand, forcing the horde back. Then a porcupine joined the fray, making the dementers closest shriek and fly away. Then a badger, a cheetah and finally a dolphin joined, creating a wall of light, driving the dementers away while shrieking in pain.

Merlin held the spell until she was sure the dementers were gone, then let go and sat down,with a sigh of relief, hoping that was it, that dementers were the only Slytherin forces .

Alas it was a fool's hope, for at that moment, the boatman cried out

Wardens!

~ Till next time ~

Codex .

Wardens- The wardens form the most elite of Slytherin's forces. They perform the task of purification of magical society by killing mages and other non desirables, i.e- anyone who's not a pureblood. Wardens feared every where, having been known to kill children and carry out mass rapes and executions.