[IC] Northwood Academy

[kittyluna45]

Stella Herbalem

The Library

Stella sighed a bit, wondering if it was a bad thing to be mentally cursing an already dead person. "Books here that logically shouldn't... Maybe if she had given that clue to someone that spent more time in a library that would be helpful... but god, I'm a plant girl! What can I do... what shouldn't belong here!" She sighed as she walked through the stacks, going to the one section of the library that she knew the best, the section on plants.

Stella always had an odd relationship with books. Since they were made from dead trees most of the time, she could still hear their almost silent cries of pain. It was mostly with newer books, since the pages were more likely to be fresh. The older they were, the books were more silent. Sometimes, this aspect of her 'gift' really did bother her.

Since the surge that day, the faint whisper was a bit louder than usual. She seemed to be still suffering the effects of the surge, and she was sure she wasn't the only one. She looked over a bit and saw that while Tobias was looking around he was sticking a bit close to her. She blushed and smiled to herself, thankful for not only him but for Zaylin as well. She doubted that she could have handled being alone in this library at the moment, while hearing the screams of death.

Stella finally found the botany section of the library and made a right turn into the stacks. She gently ran her hands along the books and closed her eyes for a moment. She then ran her hands along the books until... "Hello, what's this?" She felt an odd texture under her hand. It didn't feel like the bookbindings of the text books they used for school. It wasn't even plant as far as she could tell.

She pulled the book off the shelf and realized that the outside of the book was unmarked. There was no title, no author name, nothing to mark what felt like some sort of animal skin. The book looked and smelled old. As she flipped open, Stella blinked. She flipped through the book and realized that it was entirely in code. "I... I think I found what you mean Amy..." She opened the book and saw that there were intricate drawings of many plants. It was detailed, more detailed than a book this old should be, she guessed. The pages felt like they were also made of some sort of animal, so it had to be made before paper became the popular book making material.

Stella knew that she was never going to be able to decode this thing herself. She was fourteen for goodness sake! However, she had a feeling that she should hold onto this book, whatever it was, for now. She closed the book and held onto it before she set on to look further into the library.

[Saltwater Thief]

Tobias Rivenridge

It was not the first time in Tobias's life that he found himself vexed by Melvil Dewey and his very existence. This system of organizing library books was downright silly with its numbers. Really, if you needed a codebook to decipher and cross reference anything that wasn't an actual secret code, it should have been taken as a sign that it was too complex. "Architecture, 720 point whatever, right over there, THANK YOU!"
He was shortly upon the books that hopefully held what he was looking for. He had found a copy of some records that indicated the school had been founded in the 1800s, but he somehow doubted that was correct. As a means to double check, as well as tie in to his personal clue, he'd gone searching for a book on 1800s architecture. It took some time, but he did find one, pulled it from the shelf, and started flipping through it. Confirming his suspicions took barely half the book; the themes and example schematics discussed were so wildly different from almost all of structures of the Academy that he wondered how anybody could be convinced those records were accurate. Some of them fit the ideas, but the rest of it...
It could well be that they were coerced by someone, he mused, or perhaps someTHING.
There was, however, a footnote that caught his eye as he passed. A small thing in a passing passage comparing some of the larger buildings of the time to even older structures, but it referenced another textbook by the same publisher and author on medieval and Renaissance architecture. A quick scan down the shelf revealed that the book was present, and opening it revealed a slew of styles that befit more of the school's buildings... but still not all. Come to think of it, he thought to himself, Some of the dorms also remind me of London townhouses, but those were all built in the 20s!
Tobias spent the next half hour pouring over every era he could find a book for. And every single one of them had a design or idea described that could be attributed to one building or another of the campus, even the ones that went so far back as the construction of Versailles! And yet, for all that was explainable, there still remained a handful that he couldn't place, like they were built before Architecture was a thing to be studied. It was as if, rather than just being older than advertised, the school was one giant anachronism where every time period that passed dropped something off. How old, then, did that make the buildings he couldn't place? He sat there between the shelves, surrounded by books, pondering that as the time continued to pass.

[Feisty-Pants]

Elizabeth Hawkins -- To the Library!

Inconspicuously, the Alchemist trailed behind the group that had decided to head for the library. Amid the gaggle of students and the like, she felt it wise to remain hidden in plain sight. Something was truly off about this school, and while Michael may have thought that she could have been the source, she knew the truth. Not only wasn't she responsible, but she fully intended to delve into the root of it all!

Observing acutely as the group dispersed and headed in differing directions once tbey entered the library, Ellie took a moment to relish the stiff, stale air. This was her most cherished place inside the school, after all.

Heading into the Library, she headed for the section that had always drawn her attention. The one which most had usually thought was myth and fiction. Only did she know that more often than not, the tales told betwixt the pages oft had dire truths within them. Often coded, just waiting to be deciphered. Her fingertips traced along countless spines then, not searching for anything in particular as she could practically feel some books shudder to her touch.

However, something caught her eye.

It was in a back corner, beneath a dimly lit shelf. A book which was far too ancient compared to the others that surrounded it. She could see it in the spine, the cracked leather bind, and the weathered appearance of it. Curiously, she drew closer only to have her audibly gasp in surprise at what she had happened upon. The spine was only marked by one letter. Just one.

The roman numeral 'V'.

It was the last of her descendant's books! The last tome written by Nicolas Flamel!!

Instantly sliding it off the shelf, Elizabeth walked towards a table and sat down beside it. Propping open the book, she'd dig around in her purse for her notes and a writing utensil. Hastily getting to work as the only noise she made was the frantic scratching of pencil upon paper. There was so much to learn, so much that she didn't understand! Moving to the only chalkboard within the library, the Alchemist moved her notes onto the slate and began drawing a circle. Of which within more more intricate designs began to emerge.

[kittyluna45]

Katalina Hargraves and Ash Marino

In the history of bad ideas, Kata was still sure that going to seek clues at the bottom of the very lake they had found her friend dead in last year topped the charts next to dropping bombs on Japan and dropping acid. However, Amy had steered both her and Ash this way, most likely because they both had water related powers. There was something that needed to be found here, and Katalina was hoping she could find it before she ran out of air.

She hadn’t really tried out this part of her power that much, as she was never really given time to practice making air bubbles for herself. She wasn’t that worried, because she was sure if it did fail her at a spectacular level Ash would help her. Though the lake was creeping her out. She knew that there weren’t fish in it, since it was isolated lake. However, that didn’t explain why the plants in it seemed to have this awful grey hue to them that Kata was sure wasn’t healthy for any plant. It was like the lake itself was having the life slowly draining out of it. “Like us.”

She was distracted from her thoughts by Ash putting out her palm flat, the sign for stop. Kata quirked her head over to Ash. ”What is it?” Ash, who now seemed to have gills on her neck, pointed down toward what looked like a mound of mud that had significant overgrowth on it. The plants there were black looking. What seemed to have caught Ash’s attention though was an old metal grate.

Ash started swimming faster toward it, she seemed to be more fish like the deeper into the water they got. She now had webbing between her fingers, and scaling on most of her exposed skin. Kata followed her towards the old metal grate and once the two of them had reached it she looked over at Ash and then back to the grate. She focused her powers, which was difficult while trying to maintain her air bubble, but the grate was soon nudge off by the water around it. ”Want to go first?” Ash nodded and swam into the tunnel. Just as Kata was about to follow her in Ash swam back out, and covered her eyes, then pointed in the hole.

”It’s dark in there huh?” Ash nodded, and then swam back into the hole, slower this time.”Guess we’re still going in.” Kata moved forward, manipulating her bubble a bit so that she could fit through the tunnel. It was long and dark, which made sense for being a tunnel underwater. Though she was starting to feel something she had not felt in some time, claustrophobia. Water was suppose to be her comfort, but this school had now made it her prison. If she lost focus for even a moment…

The two swam along, not even realizing they were going in an upward slope until they reached… ”Air!” Kata’s bubble dropped, merging back with the water around her body as her head bobbed in the water. She looked around, trying to figure out where the heck she and Ash were now. It looked like a cave, which seemed weird. Kata didn’t remember there being any mentions of caves anywhere on the school’s grounds before. Kata found her way to the shore and got out of the water. ”So, I think we might have found what Amy wanted us to find, but what do we do from here?”

“I don’t know” Ash spoke in a hushed tone, but not because she was whispering from what Kata could tell, but more that she was having issue breathing. After a moment Kata heard Ash take a deep breath of air. “Okay, that is better. I can’t see anything, can you? The odd thing is,” Ash paused. “I know exactly where the water is, when I am in it I feel it’s edges. But getting out I lose all of that.”

”Sadly, I can’t really see a lot here. There’s not a lot of light.” Kata sighed for a moment. ”I guess we’ll have to explore by feel.”

“Yeah, I nodded, but obviously you couldn’t see that.” Kata could hear Ash then moving out of the water, it sounded like she stumbled a few feet. “Okay webbing is cool and all in the water, sucks on the land.”

”I’ll make a note of that.” Kata put her right hand in front of her, and her left off to the side as she stumbled around the cave for a moment. She wasn’t sure what she was hoping to find until her hand slid along something with a cool familiar texture. The cold metal of a round doorknob. Odd, for a cave, but she’d take it. Out of some odd habit, her hand moved to open the door and turn on the light switch. Before she realized it, her left finger was hitting a switch, illuminating the cave.

“Light!” Ash shouted, and then was standing next to Kata at the door, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the sudden bright light. The pair of them looked into the newly discovered room to discover what looked like an almost exact replica of the headmistress’ office, but about 300 years older. Everything was made of wood, which looked like if they sneezed the wood would fall apart into piles. “Is this what Amy wanted us to find? Cause this is definitely not what I expected.”

”Well, this isn’t what I expected as well.” Kata had been in the headmistress’ office once, and to see something that looked it was still there but three hundred years older… ”How old is this place?” She shuddered involuntarily at the thought of this place having existed for over three hundred years. How many lives? How many Natalies? Then something caught her eyes. She reached down to just next to the desk and picked up an earring. A little simple sparrow, but Kata knew that well. ”Ash… she was here. Natalie was here!”

“What is this place?” Ash reached out to touch the earring, and then stopped herself, her hand dropping back down to her side. “We have to stop this place.”