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Following on from her meditation session, Aurian was looking for somewhere quiet to relax. For all that the mediation left her feeling peaceful, it certainly took a lot out of you! Aurian hadn't sweat so much fighting off those stupid crabs and giant octopus thing on the beach.

Somehow Aurian found her way to a giant library. It was a two level building, walls crammed from floor to roof with tomes. High above Aurian's head was a painted ceiling, so light and detailed that it took her some time to realise the floors didn't continue further up. The contrast between the joyous, colourful 'skylight' and the dark corners of the bottom floor had Aurian all aquiver. Oh yes, she could happily spend some time here.

Aurian inspected the items in the centre of the floor as she walked past, peering closely but not daring to touch. The globes and clocks and other devices all screamed of age and great expense. Aurian didn't want to break anything belonging to a clan named Death - it sounded bad for her health. The books themselves might be safe, though. Aurian decided to stick closer to the walls for a while.

As she crossed to the far side of the room, a white figure caught the Reaper's eye. That looked familiar... Aurian looked again. "Mai?" she cried out in delight... before remembering that this was a library. She cringed, expecting a fierce barrage of 'shhhh!'s to come her way. "Mai?" she tried again, barely above a whisper this time.

Aurian returned the hug with enthusiasm - perhaps more than was needed. In Aurian's defense, it felt like such a long time since the Trials had ended. But that wouldn't have been of any comfort to Mai, were she not a ghost and technically not in need of any real ribcage or spine.

"I missed you," Aurian said (a little garbled seeing as how her face was smushed into Mai's shoulder). Releasing the other ghoul, Aurian took a step back to smile brightly at her friend. "I was so glad when I saw both our names on the class list, but then I couldn't find you during the assembly or when we first got here and I started to worry..."

Okay. So it was possible that Aurian was a little co-dependant. Just a little. (The stupid Death Trial hadn't exactly helped there.)

"It's not a bad place, is it?" she asked Mai. She could have been referring to the library, or to the Death Isle as a whole. She let her fingers trail over the spines of the books as she talked. Aurian opened her mouth - perhaps to clarify what the 'it' was - when she caught sight of a familiar number under her fingers. Snapping her jaw shut, Aurian opened it again and for a few seconds she resembled nothing more than a goldfish.

"Hey, Mai, look at this," she urged. Pulling out the book, she proffered the gilded spine to the other ghoul. Some fancy glyphs started at the top, but beneath them a much more recognisable number: 1999. Aurian shivered. "Wasn't this a thing? Like, not that long ago?"

She hadn't been there herself, but the halls of Amityville breathed rumour and Aurian ate those up like dessert. And rumour said that something funny had happened in 1999 - and that it had been recently. Aurian wasn't entirely sure how that worked, but she'd seen some very weird things happen since joining the school, so she was willing to take it on face value.

Lowering her voice, she whispered, "Do you think this is one of the things the teachers want us to find out about? The homework thing, I mean?"

Was this... not a friendly exchange after all? Aurian's expression drooped.

Nevertheless, she opened the book, wondering if it could tell her more. Unfortunately it seemed to be made up of the same strange glyphs and diagrams, none of which made any sense to Aurian.


1-20: You pick up a book, and notice that it has the number1999 on it. Oddly enough, when you open the book up, inside instead of random scrawls, are also strange diagrams. You don't really understand what they mean, as they all the circles in the diagrams are covered in unusual glyph markings. (see below for horsemen point prompt)

Mai smiled a bit crookedly when Aurian mentioned the earlier assembly. "Ah.. yeah.. I think I slept through most of it." She'd been just outside the assembly area when she was struck with the urge to nap. Well, she'd almost made it there, that had to count for something. Right?

She watched the other ghoul as she touched the spines on the books as Mai had done earlier. "It doesn't seem bad so far," she agreed cautiously. "But I'm not going to let my guard down." She remembered all too well how quickly things went from fun in the sun to death by electric shock during the trials. Mai's eyes wandered up toward the ceiling, following the paintings dancing around the walls. And as if to punctuate her point, the paintings near the corners of this place became strangely.. morbid. Mai raised an eyebrow, but made no comment.

When Aurian brought up the book marked 1999, the ghost could only stare blankly. "I.. I'm not sure really. It feels familiar but I don't know from where.." She shrugged helplessly. "I'm usually pretty behind on current events."

Aurian giggled at Mai's admission, completely unsurprised to hear that Mai had slept through the Assembly. Her text to the other ghoul had asked as much - and clearly hadn't woken Mai when it arrived, either.

"I've only heard rumours. But too many of them to be nothing." She was just as bad as Mai claimed to be about getting involved in student life. If it wasn't Mai and Vaith grabbing her and forcing her to participate, Aurian was happy to stay on the sidelines and support others. It was fun to get involved, though - she really did owe her friends or dragging her out of her comfort zone.

But the presence of the book raised an interesting thought. "I wonder if there are any other books in here about 1999," Aurian mused. "Maybe one of them would be something we could actually read." There was a chance, right? Even just a tiny one?

Unfortunately, the only books she could find with readable titles were things like The Teachings of the Path of Death. Not really what she was looking for, unless Mai wanted some help nodding off.

One of the Clan Priestesses hurried past. Aurian debated asking her about the 1999 book, but held her mouth. The Priestess looked to be in quite a hurry. And if, by some chance, 1999 was something they weren't meant to know about? Aurian was determined to find out anyway, so it was better not to tip anyone off.

There was nothing to find this time. Aurian glanced around, but decided it must have been a trick of the light. The book was again unhelpful, completely indecipherable.

"They should have a class on teaching us how to read their funny writing," she grumbled.

While waiting for a response, Aurian figured it couldn't hurt to check one last time. They'd be moving on to another Clan, another island, soon. This might be Aurian's last chance to learn anything more about 1999.

Her search brought her by the sealed passageway once more. Aurian tried it again - just in case - but it still refused to budge. She doubted that anyone would be able to force it open. "Maybe it only opens from the inside," she wondered, tracing the edges of the door. "Or maybe there's a secret switch you have to push. Oh! Or a book you have to pull, like those weird old movies."

A glance over her shoulder had Aurian wincing. There was far too many books in here to try pulling them all out one by one. No, this door simply wasn't opening. Time for Aurian to give up and move on.



81- 100: You notice at the far end of the library there is a sealed passageway. However, the door seems to be firmly shut, and in fact, made out of solid stone.