[ea_blue]

"And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it"
--Paulo Coelho

"That don't make any sense to me," said Jake as trotted beside Phil across the Brazil Nut wood floor inlaid with Egyptian hieroglyphics in black Italian marble. "These diggs is real nice." A half-smoked cigar dangled from his mouth, leaving a trail of smoke behind him and making his thick Bostonian accent even more difficult to understand than usual.

"I like it here too," replied Phil, chewing on an aromatic leaf.

"So why you wanna leave?"

Phil stopped and looked at Jake like a teacher regarding an especially slow student. "Because Lucretia said we 'can not' leave. That's as good as a challenge in my book!"

"Yeah, alright. But that still means we're leavin' a mighty nice pad."

"Oh we won't stay gone. We'll just go and come back once we know we can do it."

"That ain't too bad then. So where we goin' now?"

"I don't know, but we're almost there."

"Eh? That don't make no sense." Jake stopped and looked up at Phil suspiciously. "If you don't know where you're goin' how can you know you're almost there? You ain't been nippin' from my stash of whiskey have you?"

Phil walked on, ignoring Jake's intense look. "Of course not. Let me explain." Jake shook his head and scrambled after his peculiar companion to hear the story. "Earlier I chewed on this one particular leaf," Phil continued, and pulled an example from one of his many pouches to show to Jake. "While chewing, I concentrated on what I really wanted - figuring out how to penetrate the magical barriers of this house - and from there I simply followed the feelings that came to me. And so eventually I..." Phil stopped in front of a large, doorway. "It's in there." He pointed at the ornately carved, double wooden doors.

"What's in there?"

"What I'm looking for."

"What're you lookin' for?"

"I don't know."

"You ain't been eating some stray, funny-tasting brownies, have you?"

Phil pushed open the doors and strolled into an immense library. Shelves, three stories high, stretched above their heads like literary Sequoias. The behemoth structures lined up for hundreds of yards, curving around Greek statuary and massive marble fountains. Phil darted through the shelves in a trance, taking his steps with the strange sureness of a sleep walker.

After he led a merry chase through the shelves, he finally stopped. Carefully, as though handling a precious Fabergé Egg, Phil extracted an ancient, worn book the size of a Life magazine and thick as a brick. It's dusty cover, made from a living Sabertooth cat's skin, faintly glowed with an unearthly sheen. Bones from a giant sea creature, unknown to man, lined it's spine. "The Tome of Incata-ngai," he whispered reverently. Even his subdued voice seemed to echo in the sudden violent silence that gripped the library.

Concentrating his whole being on his center, steeling his mind against the powerful wards that might live in the book, Phil slowly opened the cover. He kept his eyes closed, fearful that the ancient symbols might contain the power to drive his soul from his body in an instant. He brushed his fingers delicately across a banana-leaf page older than mankind. He felt no dangerous magic. Wordlessly saying a prayer to Atrinka, goddess of mental strength, he calmed himself...and looked at the page.

"Does it got pictures?" asked Jake.

Phil jumped at Jake's sudden non-sequitor. He rolled his eyes. "No..." He sneaked another look. "Well...I don't know yet, Jake! I've never seen one before! It's supposed to be just a myth. It was written by a...Huma..well a sort of..."

"Man?"

"No...a..."

"Raccoon?"

"No!"

"Sounds boring. Gimme one a' those leaves. I want a drink!"

[Mr Morbid]

Jeff stalked through row after row of bookshelves, not quite sure what he was looking for but sure he’d leave the manor’s library with something to read. He stopped by a leaning pile of books and blew the thick layer of dust off the topmost one.
“Do-It-Yourself Body Removal,” he said, reading the book’s cover out loud and flicking it open to a random page.

One of the best ways to get rid of a corpse is to cut it into six pieces and pile it together for easy removal or storage. We recommend removing it immediately, as there’s no point in leaving it out in the open for some to discover. From here, you can use one of the following options:
• Barrel of acid: always good if you’re going for the Mafia approach.
• Pig farms: apparently, one of the best ways to dispose of a corpse is to feed it to pigs. A single pig can go through two pounds of uncooked flesh in a minute, and you’ll need at least sixteen pigs to get the job done in one go.

If you’re after something less obscure, choose one of these:
• Burning down a house.
• Weighting the body and throwing it in a river or ocean.
• Burial (be sure to bury it deep enough, sniffer dogs can smell them to a depth of four feet.)

Jeff placed the book back on the pile and walked of, slightly worried at the mental stability of their hostess.
As he walked past more shelves, he noticed some of the other guests sitting in a circle of chairs around the fireplace. Some, like the raven-haired beauty and the knight, were engaged in conversation, while others like the has-been rocker and white-haired scientist sat on their own. Phil and Jake seemed to be mesmerized by some sort of black-magic book. Nothing seemed to catch his fancy, until he was absent-mindedly looking through the biography section and something caught his eye.
“The life and crimes of Erzsébet Báthory,” he said in a barely audible whisper. He picked it off the shelf, and having sparked his interest, sat down on the floor right where he’d been standing and started reading.

[katofmystery]

Shawnee began to wonder about one of the humans in particular. He was constantly talking to himself and was calling himself different names. One seemed faintly familiar: Guy Fawkes. She must have read about him somewhere because she hadn’t talked to many humans before she came to the rather large house.

Deciding in an instant to go to the library, Shawnee rose and drifted in the general direction of the library thinking about all the different humans she had the chance to document. Despite all the books she read, Shawnee had never heard of a girl who could eat as much as Charlie and stay in the same beautiful form (maybe she was a goddess). And then there was the octopus. Naturally, Shawnee had never seen one up close and found it interesting that some of the people wanted to tap the glass box that he sat in. She half heartedly thought about doing it herself just so she could see the reaction the octopus would have.

Upon entering the library she heard someone shout, “Noooooooooooo! Not Charlie!” Shawnee found a man surrounded by women (okay there were only three). Shawnee walked up to the man and put her hand on his shoulder while she reached up high to grab a small book. When she got the book, she gave the man a quick pat on the head and told him, “It’s alright.” Reading the situation incorrectly and once again mixing human fiction (fantasy) with nonfiction. “The book will give her back eventually.” Smiling, she drifted to a window and sat down.

Shawnee opened the book labeled, “Guy Fawkes, A History” (author unknown or perhaps Rowling knows him/her). Upon opening the book she found on the first page.

“Based on the life of Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 - 31 January 1606)”

Shawnee slammed the book shut. She suddenly remembered everything by looking at the date of death. She had read a different book about him though, "A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot" by David Jardine. He tried to blow something up. Shawnee was considerably more excited than she was before. ‘Someone who was crazy! Excellent!’ She thought throwing the book softly onto a table.

[Zoidberg]

As Dr. Maskovitch (a name which he often fancied calling himself) left his room, he thought about the note that was taped to the side of his huge, pool-sized aquarium. He needed to find a book, one with great importance.

This thought actually bored Hugo. He found that a six hundred year-old library would be little use to a man whose field of specialization was in a newly discovered science.

He was, on a lighter note, glad that no one was voted out of the manor. He was yet to recover the DNA samples he needed. The only one he had so far was of Phil’s pet raccoon, Jake, which he had gotten from a bit of cigar with his saliva on it. Hugo believed that its intelligence might have something to do with its genetics.

He planned on getting DNA from a few others: that obnoxious woman, first of all. Her DNA would be perfect for the government project he was assigned, Project Superbitch, a program in which a female supersoldier was meant to infiltrate the home of a high-ranking general and destroy him. Shawnee, the wood nymph, as the only known of her species, would also be useful to add to his Replicator Index. Finally, that man, Qzt, who was supposedly an alien; his DNA would be the most useful of all.

As he was thinking this, he reached the library. It was on the western wing, just as Lucrezia had said. Sadly, however, due to the fact that he was in a wheelchair, Hugo only had access to the first floor of the library.

Inside, the library was magnificently gigantic. It’s ceiling was expertly adorned with many paintings of angels and flowers and such, much like the Sistine Chapel. However, his awe was short-lived. He was intent on his purpose.

He made his way to the Science section, and then narrowed his search down to biology, the closest science to genetics that he could find. He searched and searched, until he found an ancient, leather-bound book. He reached a tentacle out of his tank, shook it dry, and pulled the book from its shelf.

Careful not to get the tome wet, he made his way to a small table. Dust covered the volume, and he tried to blow it off, forgetting that a shield of glass separated his beak from the book, and that he could not exhale hard enough to blow off dust. Instead, he wiped the book off with his tentacle. Its cover read: Bestiarum Vocabulum. Hugo carefully (although fairly clumsily because of his tentacles) flipped a few pages, accidentally tearing some.

Through a series of guesswork and cognates, Hugo realized that this book was an ancient Bestiary. He flipped through the pages and found bits of feather, fur, and scales. “By god,” he whispered to himself, “Is this really what I think it is?”

He passed a couple of pages he observed one of the pages. Manticore, it read. Some fur was hidden in a crease on the page.

His excitement was unbearable. This was actual proof of Trolls, Griffons, Manticores, and even Dragons. Not only that, but their precious DNA was there, too!

He bubbled (literally) with enthusiasm, and changed from a pink to a bright red, to blue, then pink again. He placed the book on a tray connected to his wheelchair, and sped out of the library and down the hall to his room.

He hummed “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” all the way there.

[timtornado3721]

Why don’t you just go somewhere else?

‘Fine, maybe I will.’ Tim said as he left the two other spirits to their
game of Liar.

Now take the deck.

That isn’t my card!

Tim passed through a wall, grateful that the sound of their pathetic arguing couldn’t follow him.

Ugh “I’m so bored here in this mansion. There’s nothing to do but talk to the other people but hey, who wants to hang out with me? I’m the only sane person here and they call me crazy? Not to mention our host can't choose what age she is. Probanly drank from the wrong fountain when she was trying to be young again. I guess drinking from the Fountain of Age isn’t the same as the Fountain of Youth.”

He pulled the note out of his pocket and read it again.

Find a book in my library and document how you found it and why it's so important.

"What would a dead guy do with a book?" Tim said aloud.

"How to butcher your friends in ten easy steps or 1001 ways to murder people." Ian said from a chair across the room. He was mending an arrow from his quiver.

"I don't think it will do any good for me in here. I can't exactly kill anyone here even if I wish I could sometimes. Damn voices."

"Why don't you try something to get rid of them then. It'll put you out of your misery. And if it doesn't work..." He drew his bow and aimed it at me with a grin before easing on the string and returning to fiddling with his arrow.

I float through the ceiling to the library above and expand my conciousness to probe the books for anything interesting. I instantly pick up a few presences tucked within the pages of some very odd tomes.

Some screamed for my attention to set them free from their papery prison but I knew better than to head their siren's call.

Other books were there but remained silent and paid no attention to my probing. Other's had evil escaping from their pages like fog off of a witch's cauldron. I avoid these at all costs, who know knows what kind of demons they may hold.

What kind of a libray is this? Lucy has just about anything here from modern to ancient scrolls ladened with supernatural magic. Well, might as well start recording what I did. I grab a book, Mien Kempf, this could work as the paper. It's not like anyone cared about what that crazy guy had to say anyway. Now for a pen.

Tim bit the tip of his finger until a small dot off blood emerged. There, that will work. Now, I entered the libray through the floor and sensed some very disturbing presences here. Lucy must not care that her library and maybe here entire mansion is plagued by things far worse than three werewolves and a bunch of paranoid villagers armed with guns. And molten gold. Maybe she enjoys things that reflect her own personality? Maybe she enjoys baskig in their evil aura.

Tim looked around for something interesting to read when he looked down at his writing and noticed the blood swirl and rearange to form new words.

You fool, you know nothing of what you hold. But thank you for bringing me back. Unfortunately, I have nothing to reward you with besides sparing your life when my Fourth Riech is complete.

"Aw crap, not again. WHY ME!!!!!!!" Tim shouts into the air as the book he is holding laughs menacingly.

[Phonoho]

Its voice was clear; the word it spoke was warm and familiar. Like rain through a summer canyon, it drifted up, across the barrier of atmospheres, to permeate the structural geology of Raconteur Manor. Voids in stone and mortar sang with the sound and presence of regenerate life. A regenesis had begun…

Resonating at frequencies of near 17Hz, the infrasonic wave created by Wendy’s voice traveled unimpeded out to a distance of 37 miles and in a radius of 360-degrees. All biological organisms existing within this subsonic sphere were immediately stricken by an impalpable sense of foreboding and dread. The entire rat population of Reconteur Manor, their tiny brains unable to cope with the unnatural sensation caused by the rapid oscillation of their body fluids, began to advance toward the library, instinctively seeking the possible shelter and safety of its book-lined shelves.
A river of rats poured into the library gallery through every available access, their black bodies glistening with fresh incontinence. Rats exploded through cracks beneath baseboards, moldings and fixtures. They wicked up into the shelves for refuge in a futile attempt to insulate themselves from their undefined tormentor. Finding no surcease among the tomes, they gnashed their teeth at the air around them and fell upon the books in a frenzy of fear and madness.

From her womb in the painted closet, Wendy could hear the gentle, soft sound of shredding paper and suddenly remembered rain...

[Bluejay]

<Begin personal log>

Word spread of a vast “library” in the manor. It was clarified for me by one of the guests (and several of his alternate consciousnesses) that a library is a great storehouse of knowledge, broken down in things called “books” which one “reads.” It sounds much less efficient than the direct mind transfer technology we use. Perhaps I can introduce our hostess to it sometime, as a goodwill gesture between our worlds.

Intrigued nonetheless despite my misgivings, I sought out this library. The quantity and arrangement of these “books” was most impressive. I took one in my manipulators and opened it. Inside there were sheets and sheets, all covered in marks. I examined a number of them. I was beginning to see the appeal. They have not only a wondrous texture, but also a certain smell and sound as the pages are turned. And the efficiency of direct mind knowledge implantation is more than offset by the almost meditative and relaxed state enjoyed while the information is perused.

A small orb was drifting lazily about the room. As I drew near, it addressed me, asking to know what I was looking for. With each word it spoke, it flashed in mesmerizing fashion. I said I didn’t know, being new to reading. With that information, it steered me to a shelf of thinner books, many with images. It then queried me further. I explained that I was royalty from another world and had no clue where to even begin. With that, it lit up a choice on the shelf. I slid it out and glanced through it. It had the usual language marks and also some pictures. The cover showed a human standing on a ball. It was simple and engaging.

I was later able to get the ship’s analyzers to translate the marks. The book was titled “The Little Prince,” and it told a captivating story of a Prince who lives on a small planet called an “asteroid.” The little prince travels to many other asteroids before finally coming to Earth. The similarities were what I once heard someone describe as “spooky.”

This brief venture into the local information store has my mind racing. Now I wish to see a desert and to learn the nuances of these things called “roses.”

The book has now been captured and input into the ship’s data store. I look forward to enjoying it again in the future. With such a large quantity of books here, I could end spending the rest of my life exploring their contents.

And if I consume any more of that “mac n cheese”, I know where I will spend my time doing it, too.

<End personal log>

[Jimbalaya]

Pelican Brief cracked his room door to peer out into the hall, a response to the door directly across from his creaking open in the middle of the night. He peered out in time to see the skinny girl with the incredible case of the munchies yank an I.V. out of her arm in frustration, or was it fear?, and shuffle down the hallway. Maybe she has more than an eating problem, he thought. He made a note to ask her about it sometime.

He watched her disappear down the hallway and turn right then quickly opened the door all the way and checked the hallway again going both ways. Nobody else was up. Now was his chance, he had been waiting for his easiest opportunity to enter one of the guest’s rooms but could never find a convenient time.

He quietly slipped across the hall and tried the knob, it turned easily and the door squeaked faintly on lightly rusted hinges and Pelican melted into the gloom of his neighbors room. He quickly surveyed the room and found that the set up was exactly like his except a mirror image. Everything was backwards but essentially the same. He crept silently to the dresser and quickly snatched a tiny pair of black lace panties and pocketed them. Later, maybe he would arrange them beautifully in a wine glass in the center of the table in the Dining Hall.

Cracking the door once again and peering down the hallway both ways, he slipped out of the room and started towards the library. There was that infernal challenge that the fishnet stocking hostess made for them. Briefly, he wondered what would happen if he failed to find a book in the library. He decided it didn’t matter, he needed something to put him to sleep anyway, a book would work wonderfully.

He could see the heavy oak doors down the hall and was a bit surprised when they opened up and the skinny girl came wandering out. He had nothing to worry about, however, she was nose deep in a heavy-looking book in one hand and a jug of milk and a bag of great-smelling cookies in the other. She passed by Pelican without even registering that he was there. He had to smash himself against the far wall to avoid being hit by the swinging, half-full jug of milk.

He watched her pass in her slow shuffling walk and vanish around the corner. He exhaled sharply in relief and continued through the open doors of the library.

It wasn’t’ what he expected.

When he entered, the room was free of any shelves, or furniture or any kind of color. Instead, sitting snugly on a lighted pedestal was a single paperback book. He walked slowly forward, stealing furtive glances all around him as he went.

Nobody interrupted him on his walk and nothing jumped out at him when he reached the small book. The book itself was skinny and looked brand new with a glossy all black cover. No pictures, no words anywhere on the outside of the book. Pelican tentatively picked the book up and opened the book which gave out a tiny groan as the spine stretched against the glue holding the book together. He flipped a few pages into the book. There were no words in the book, nor numbers at the bottom of the page. He flipped a few more pages and then a few more. Nothing. He wondered what the point of such a thing could be and absently flipped to the last page of the book. He stared at it momentarily and then yelped and dropped the book which landed on the hard floor with a soft hollow sound.

Pelican stared wide-eyed down at the book, toyed with the idea of burning it, and thought against it. Burning it because of it’s apparent possession. When he stared at the last page the words “Go back ten pages.” Opened up and wrote themselves across the page in a neat script.

Pelican did not pick the book up and felt the minutes tick away under the ever-impatient Father Time.

[Nupur]

He painfully gripped her hips, his cries of pleasure mingling with her screams of pain. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, drawing blood onto his flawless pale skin, hoping that the pain would make him stop but he only smirked and pushed harder and faster, the sheets wetted from the blood from the wounds on her back.

His black hair was shading his mysterious eyes. His pale face glittered in the light of the moon that came from the large glass window. His handsome looks were innocent but the smirk on his face poised an evilness that gave nightmares to her when he left.

His movements stopped, his face contorted in bliss as she closed her eyes and bit her bloody lip, tears cascading down her cheeks.

He lay besides her, panting heavily as he tried to regain his normal pulse as hers beat madly while she cried into her pillow.

"Jesus Stewart," he breathed into her ear. "See what you make me do?" he said, his voice a mask of false sweetness. His hands went up to her mass of brown frizzy hair, tangling his fingers in her knots and made her face him. His eyes bore into hers making her flinch as his intense gaze drank in her eyes that showed fear and anger combined in her pools of brown. He put a hand under her chin, forcing her to come closer to his face so that his cool breath tingled against her skin.

His eyes were so beautiful yet evil, mysterious yet scary. Sweat was making his long hair stick to his forehead, yet he looked like an angel.

A fallen angel that turned into the devil.

***
Samantha woke up from her nightmare with sweat dripping down her forehead. Her heart was thumping so loudly that she could hear it clearly. She was scared of getting any more sleep, lest she saw the nightmare again. Donning a robe over her nightdress, she walked out of her room, and towards the west, where in the distance she could see two large wooden doors.

That part of the house looked ancient. As she entered the large, wood-panelled room, she saw all the walls lined with huge stacks of books. There was a book on every thinkable subject. Looking in wonder at the enormous collection, she slowly went past each rack, stopping at a lone shelf that read ‘Shakespeare’. She picked up a thick volume full of sonnets and immediately kept it back. She was well versed with Shakespeare’s sonnets and could even recite many of them without needing to look them up. She then picked up a small leather bound book. The cover read ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

She knew this book well. After reading it in school in the seventh grade, she had stood up and told her teacher exactly how the story should have progressed and why exactly Romeo and Juliet were the world’s two biggest fools. She could see the memories clearly...

“Ma’am,” Samantha began, “don’t you think the least they could have done was to check if the other was alive? I mean, what was the hurry? They had their entire lives to kill themselves, but if they knew that both of them were alive and well, they could have lived together, as the cliché goes, ‘happily ever after’. But these idiots were in a hurry to stab themselves and drink the poison. I mean, if I was in their place, I would definitely check if my boyfriend is actually dead before I kill myself.”

Smiling wryly, she rolled her eyes and kept the book back in its place.

[Corneac]

Insomnia. You’re never really asleep and you’re never really awake either. You live in the eternal comatose or half-formed dreams. She loved the night, regardless, the silence and isolation it offered form the outside world. The cracked saucer she’d stolen as an ash-tray was overflowing, the twisted butt of her last cigarette still smoking as she hunched over her folder. She was drawing Lucrezia, the child, or whatever form she had taken this time.

The wine glass clutched in her hands, her smug, knowing look reflected slightly in the glass. They came out as coursed uneven lines, perfect though, catching the uneven nature of her stance in the stilettos. She wiped the charcoal form her freehand and rolled a cigarette as she drew, the ferocity of her hand never stopping. She’d long before exhausted her supply of tailor’s and had been forced to use the extensive stash of tobacco at the bottom of her bag. Standing, she licked the paper and lit it. The image sat perfect, a figure, a memory immortalized in paper. She could let it go now.

She stalked the hallways, shrinking back from the doorways that offered light and raucous laughter. She found the library easily enough, the door stood ajar, a fire crackling somewhere within. There sat the Knight and the delusional Marie Antoinette herself, engrossed in conversation and feigned laughter. Flirting, she thought to herself, and that guy had definite boner under the incline of his armour. Not that she was looking or anything. She skirted to the safety of the panelled walls and towering bookshelves before they could notice her. She scanned the dusty bookshelves, archaic volumes of poetry. T.S Eliot. Alexander Pope. Wordsmyth.

She plucked the volume she was looking for, and settled herself against the wall to read. Her eyes skimmed the first page, second page, third page, each line lingering barely a second.

with walls built like fortitude
to keep the sadness in,
built with a stone I cannot name
to keep what lies within,

She skimmed , taking a drag of her cigarette and read the last stanza for the thousandth time.

If mortar was a conscience
and guilt its sand and brick,
I’d help to build them higher
around you, just as thick,

For Allegra, what I can give, always.

A guilt trip, she thought, even in death. She brought the flame of her lighter to the book, the pages curling instantly and busting into flame. She left it there, the flame barely a foot tall but still burning strong, and stole out of the library.

She sat in the darkness of her room, smoking. The image of the book a-smoulder still crystalline in her mind’s eye. She saw it curl to ashes, little more than flecks of grey, the same she flicked away form her burning cigarette. She let it burn, let it go.

['Ginnis]

Hey guys!

Sorry about the delay. No challenge will go up this evening. I'm currently limited in net access and not quite sure when I'll have it restored back to normal. Please get your votes into me if you have not done so yet. I'll figure out the best way to handle this situation asap. Thanks for your patience.

['Ginnis]

Samantha hurried down the unfamiliar hallway, her arms clutched nervously over her chest. Every ancient grandfather clock within the manor chimed in disenfranchised dissonance and she cringed at the minor chord. She was late.

Frustrated and confused she closed her eyes and thought hard about where she was going. Instead of the door to Lucrezia’s library, she saw his face and forced her eyes open nervously. Evidently visualization was not the answer.

“Samantha,” she heard a voice call from an open door she brusquely passed. “You missed it.”

She scampered back and poked her head inside, nervous to enter completely.

“Well come on, don’t waste our time.”

Samantha stepped into the room, confused as to just exactly who “our” was. The only person she saw sitting in the room was Lucrezia, now a grown adult pushing fifty, sitting stiffly on the chez lounge. A roaring fire crackled in the hearth on the far wall, and all those opposing it were lined from ceiling to floor with rows upon rows of books. Then it occurred to her…the ghost.

“Where’s,” she motioned around the room, “everyone else?”

“There’s no need for them to be here,” Lucrezia shrugged, getting to her feet. She moved to the side car in the corner and poured a steeping cup of tea. Samantha sat down into the plush winged chair beside the fire and took the drink for the hostess kindly.

“Thank you.”

“You’re most welcome,” Lucrezia smiled a smile that could only be considered pitying.

“So, uhm” Samantha shrugged, uncomfortably. “This is it?”

“Pretty much, but do not be concerned. You are not leaving this house alone.”

“You mean-?”

“Indeed. He’s been here for many years, but I feel that it is now time for him, and yourself, to make homes elsewhere, to move on to different things. I can’t promise that they’ll be better, only you can write your stories.”

“I see.”

Lucrezia’s face almost fell into that of a mother as she watched the solemn girl. She could feel Phonoho’s unappeased spirit behind her but offered no sign of irritation.

“Leave your last testimonies, the both of you. Share one last story before you depart, it may be anything you like. And then, if you please, find something else somewhere else.”

She nodded respectfully to the two, then stepped out of the library, leaving the exiled guests alone in solitude.

['Ginnis]

Dear guests,

As you have seen, the first two guests have been asked to leave the mansion. Phonoho and Samantha, please leave us with one last write up, a story of any kind about where you may go and or what