Red Ink in the Margins(Arachne)

July 26, 2025

PlotLog

Date: 2025-07-25 18:45

(Red Ink in the Margins(Arachne):Arachne)

[Fri Jul 25 2025]

Inside the Gothic University Library/span>/spanThe main library’s ground floor stretches out beneath a vaulted ceiling
supported by dark wooden beams that have aged to nearly black. Tall shelves
of polished oak form narrow corridors between the reading areas, their upper
reaches accessible only by rolling ladders that glide along brass rails.
Green-shaded reading lamps cast pools of light over long tables where carved
initials from decades of students mark the worn surfaces. The air carries the
distinct scent of old paper and binding glue, while radiators along the walls
tick irregularly as steam moves through the pipes. Gothic-arched windows line
the perimeter, their leaded glass panes distorting the outside view and
creating shifting patterns on the floor as clouds pass overhead. Near the
western entrance to Salstonstall Memorial House, the temperature drops
noticeably, and books on the nearby shelves show more foxing and water damage
than elsewhere in the collection. Card catalogs in dark wood cabinets still
occupy space near the circulation desk, their brass pulls worn smooth from
use, though computer terminals now handle most searches. The floorboards
creak in certain spots, particularly in the northwest corner where the wood
appears darker and more weathered than the surrounding planks./span>/spanIt is about 65F(18C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Birch and Franklin/span>/spanKai turns away from Amber and back to Arachne, he glances around the interior of the library, clearly lost. He shrugs and sidles up and over to Derek to take cover with him, narrowing his eyes in a vaguely pensive expression.

Dovie follows the group, trying to keep her eyes peeled for unusual activity.

Mirabel meanders into the library and looks around nosily, adjusting her glasses. “Good evening,” she says. “I had better not catch anybody smoking in the library.”

Derek squints, exhaling softly from his nose as he drifts along in company with Arachne, tucking his hands gingerly into his pockets as he tries to focus in on anything that might stand out in particular – and then he lifts a hand slowly to his chest, as if missing a breath, something of a dazed expression as if processing some misstep.

Obadiah walks along with Dovie, moving with the Family members as they make their way around the library. The Mercer, however, is easily distracted and pauses every so often to look at other books, thumbing through them as someone who hasn’t spent much time in libraries is want to do.

Within the crowd, August’s position is decidedly beside his Treasurer. Derek’s tease is noted – and replied to, with a light nudge of his elbow to the Fairchild’s arm, “Don’t be sassy,” but his tone suggests that he knows its a useless endeavor. Towards Annabelle, however, August’s attention is harshes. Comes through that usual, perpetual Pierce glare, with which he lifts his hand to snap his fingers to catch her eyes, then beckon, “Lee, stand close to me and fall in line instead of mouthing off, or I’ll rat you out to your mom.” His second interjection seems to light a fire in the President, and for that reason, he tags along behind Arachne – claps his hands over his head, a grimoire of his own in his grip. “Form a line, two by two, three by three, I don’t care if you hold hands, but walk together with someone. We’re doing this as orderly as possible, people.”

The group up ahead past the stacks, where the aisles break apart into a sea of study tables. It is eerily quiet, and the atmosphere oppressively thick, and unusually empty during a time of the summer semester where students would normally be cramming — all save for a table of slouched figures, upper classmen, seemingly huddled together at a far table. Laptops are dimly lit, but something seems off.

[OOC: use try to make your deductive efforts and investigate for this first round.[

Annabelle finds herself staring at August, still in her own reverie. Though consciousness is fresh on its heels as the deeper float of thought loses to attention. She zips her lips with the tip of her finger gun, and hurries over with hawk wings- arms tucked behind her back.

Dovie holds Obadiah’s hand and peers around. “Is it usually this empty?” She looks to the students huddled nearby, “What are they looking at?”

“Oh! Hello, Miss Fairchild. You’re looking vibrant,” Mirabel says and smiles amiably at Dovie. “I suspect the more popular youngsters are out partying on a Friday.

“Are they? Goodness gracious,” Mirabel mutters and squints further into the library, planting her hands on her hips. “If they get too noisy, I’ll have to go over there and wag my finger.”

Kai gets up and onto one of the long tables, he doesn’t walk two by two or anything like that, kind of doing his own thing as he looks around, eyes squinted as he searches with all of his senses, including his mystical ones, to get a sense of what might be out there.

Amber doesn’t involve herself much with the conversations. Unfortunately, she also doesn’t do much investigating. The idea of possession seems to bother her more as the susurration of her whispered voice chants for protection for those in this space, perhaps buying some more time for the others to investigate.

A heavy presence slowly unfurls upon the group as they enter out of the stacks and into the dedicated study area carved between sections. For the students, the anxiety of looming deadlines and incomplete assignments looms, inescapable. The further they enter, the harder it becomes to think of anything else.

It becomes immediately apparent to those sensitive to arcane energies that they’ve crossed over the threshold of something wrong, the very apex of it centered at the table as the hunched over bodies of the four upperclassmen never stop typing, heads bowed forward on stiff necks, their expressions not quite right.

Derek/span>/spanDerek’s attention drifts back to the sort of ‘vibe’ in the air; he hasn’t awakened a particularly strong arcane sense, and yet he still keeps his chin up and his focus on the search.

August’s hand slides into his pocket as they walk, and he reaches into his pocket to bring out a mummifed bat wrapped up by its own wings. Barely big enough to fit into the palm of his hand. “Who volunteers to go talk to their seniors?” It looks like he’s treating this as a group exercise – but there is a small bead of perspiration running down his brow. Even though the bat, blind as it is, won’t be of use right now – he still kisses the back of his macabre pet, and throws it into the air. A sulphuric spark, and the necromantic pipistrelle bat stiffly starts to quietly screech ‘unalive’. A faint more of purple light is shed past the flicker of its sewn-shut eyes, but it dives, and goes out of sight to recon uselessly. Possibly while hitting a few walls, too.

“Is everything quite alright over there?” Mirabel asks August, squinting nearsightedly through the library. “If things go awry, do let me know. I’m starting to suspect that something’s up.”

Dovie watches the bat with a sense of awe though something about the area makes her shiver. “Obie, Obie go talk to them,” Dovie says, volunteering the Mercer.

Annabelle nudges August with the helmet hugged within her arms, and whispers over with a growing look of a dying flower in the young creases of her face, “..Umm. I uhh- is now a bad time to ask about what’s on the NCLEX-RN?”

Derek seems somewhat short of breath – not out of any physical exertion so much as anxiety or nerves as the group makes their way into the study area; his gaze drifts up to August’s bat as it fits about with presumable clumsiness, still seeming quietly intrigued by the creature, before his attention drifts to Obadiah after Dovie volunteers him. “Y-yeah, I think Obie should,” he seconds the volunteering of the Mercer quickly, evidently not so keen to get any closer on his own.

Obadiah gives Dovie’s hand a squeeze before releasing her hand, and then uses it to motion to Amber to come with him as he walks over, closer to August. “I suppose I could go talk to them. But what do I say? Hello fellow students, have you seen a book that rewrites your soul?” He scoffs a moment then looks between his fellows, “Or we could, you know, just rush the table take all the books and run out.”

Amber lingers near Arachne, murmuring breathy chants under her breath and visibly tense. Obadiah’s gesture seems to get her to depart her post, finally, but she continues those silent syllables for the moment. On spotting the bodies, she gives a brief smirk of amusement for some reason.

“Goodness. You’re all rather shy, aren’t you?” Mirabel huffs and paces further into the library, making her way to the upperclassmen’s table. “Good evening! Eyes off the Facebook, thank you very much. Have you studious youngsters been nosing around for Rothman’s old study guide? Or something more nefarious, perhaps?”

Obadiah mutters to Amber, “Leave it to the professor I suppose.”

Kai walks a few steps closer to the upper classmen, though he stays atop the table, his attention is pulled by the bat and he offers a simple, “Sick,” and looks away from it to Mirabel and the upper classmen, his hands slip into his hoodie pocket as he peers between them, “I don’t think that one’s very social,” he upnods at one of the ones without a mouth, a little grin twitching at his lips.

“I suspect something of the same, too.” August relays to Mirabel, but to his side, his eyes land on Annabelle first. Whom he nods to. Even lifts his hand to hover it above her head for a second, wait with that scrutiny, then give an off-sort of pat on the top of her head. “Yes, very bad time.” Something he rectifies, by wiping his hand to his shirt. Before he can say or do anything more, however, Mirabel races off on her own – and after giving everyone a once over, August takes hold of Annabelle’s shoulder ot nudge her towards Kai, to pair the two together, to make sure everyone’s even, “Stick together,” and off he backtracks, too, until he’s standing beside Mirabel.

Matias steps through the library door looking partially disheveled and his left hand showing burning around one of the knuckles, holding what appears to be a manilla folder and looking around for any gatherings within the library.

Annabelle stares forward at August, faintly hitched of shoulders as the hand touches the firm canvas of her cap. She’s reeled over to Kai like her heels are on wheels and she stares at the fellow student. “Hai. I didn’t get my helmet.”

“Just… don’t get shot in the head then I guess,” Kai suggests helpfully, glancing down at Annabelle, laughter in his voice. His attention returns to Mirabel and the upper classmen, however.

Annabelle puts on the unfashionable helmet of bicycling, clasping it under her neck and pulling the string extra tight to ward out all of the information of the books. It’s utterly foolish, but sometimes it’s the thought and intent that counts.

Amber nods a bit to Obadiah, otherwise continuing her silent chant for protection for those present. Looks about like a rabbit about to bolt, honestly.

Annabelle folds her hands over her ears as a pulse of Sensitivity opens her to the world beyond her.

Dovie grabs Obadiah’s hand again. Safety in pairs, and follows Mirabel, craning her neck for a good look.

And then they fade away from Annabelle, apparently. Ahem.

When Mirabel approaches the students to scold them for negligent use of the university’s intranet, none of the upperclassmen respond, faces cast in shadow while bloodied fingers fly over laptop keyboards, leaving a sanguine red slick of trails to stain the white lettering as words are committed to word documents.

No books within the vicinity seem to be missing from the shelves, but there is one old book that sits in the middle of the table they all share; its pages are open, names written in red in the margins like the angry, scathing rebuttals of a strict professor.

“This is worse than I thought,” comes the quiet observation of Arachne/span>Lillian squeezes Amber’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort upon noticing her nervous expression.

Is he distracted because he’s failed, or is his failure because of his distraction? August tries to murmur something under his breath, a rune, a verse, something, anything, but one of his eyes is a little more narrow in evident pain, and both of them are intently set past the gruesome, worked-to-death group to instead stare at the book in the middle of their senior gathering. “Is that it?” His voice is barely out, because his jaw is a little tenser in his effort to ignore whatever plagues his thoughts.

Annabelle wanders over to the library books, thumbing through the sections in search of Health Promotion and Maintenance.

Dovie blanches at the sight of bloody stumps typing on the keyboards, taking a step back and beginning to chant alongside Amber.

Kai shakes his head at Annabelle and hops down from the table to stand beside Annabelle, he makes a couple of quick signs with his hand and moves into her personal space, not quite touching shoulder to shoulder as he brings up what wards he can muster.

Obadiah squeezes Dovie’s hand and shoots her a reassuring smile before looking at Amber, joining in with his own whispered muttering under his breath.

“Excuse me! I asked you a question,” Mirabel insists and plants her hands on her hips, glowering suspiciously at the upperclassmen. “Don’t make me call Professor Hale and have him close off the–hmph,” she continues, until she catches sight of the seemingly trance-like, bloody-fingered typing that they’re engaged in. Frowning, she leans forward a little to peek at the ominous book. “Oh, dear. Professor Alejandro, this isn’t good.”

Derek tries to still his breath, holding his arms close to himself as he seems at this point stiff as a board, jaw clenching with tension as he places his hands behind his neck, eyes closed in something of a pained wince as he tries to put everything out of his mind, perhaps some absent hope that maybe things would work themselves out – but they don’t. His green eyes peek half-open, to those bloodied fingers, as if forcing himself to take in what would happen were he to give into whatever urge he felt in that moment, inhaling sharply from his teeth once.

Amber swears as her spell fizzles and fails, even with the support of Dovie and Obadiah. Where magic fails, it seems she hopes tech prevails. She shoves a hand into her pocket, leaning against Lillian as she pulls out her phone for some very last-minute research.

It slowly becomes apparent that it is exceedingly difficult to ward one’s self once they’ve already stepped within the realm of another’s infernal magics. Wards activated offer a fleeting amount of hope against the slow creep of oppressive dread of failure and looming deadlines until its too much for the students like Kai to bear.

One of the upperclassmen begin to fade from view before Mirabel’s eyes, slowly reduced to a fine red mist that’s slowly drawn into the Malvernis Compendium sat at the middle of the table.

The empty chairs call to Annabelle, Derek, and August, and the a fresh page within the book is slowly turned by invisible fingers, a single pen coalescing into view, tipped with red ink. Write your topic and I shall help you forge your greatest work.

Mirabel and Matias find themselves struggling to recall the very students around them, minor facts slipping away from the forefront of their minds.

After entering the library Matias/span>/spanDovie looks over towards Matias and then to Mirabel, the ostensible adults. “It looks like it’s not a good kind of better. How do we stop it?” she insists before she glances over towards Annabelle, “Are you feeling okay?”

“Dear colleague, I think this is a little too urgent for files and folders,” Mirabel informs Matias and heaves out a huffy sigh. A distraced sort of squint comes over her, gaze passing across some of the nearby students, and then she turns to the table again to leer at the tantalizing tome. “Perhaps we could just look up an answer in this volume. It’s near at hand. I think I could reach it if I just lean forward…”

Obadiah looks over to Amber when she swears and frowns slightly before giving her an encouraging grin, yes he can change facial expressions that quick. “Its ok,” he says before looking back to Dovie and squinting, “Why are we hear again?”

August’s hand extends slowly at the same time that Mirabel contemplates doing the same – but insteaad of going for the book, August attempts to take hold of her wrist to deter her of the notion. It’s not evident whether he does it for her sake, to make sure she doesn’t touch it, or because he wants to do it himself and take it all for his own gain – because he has that fixated glare lost in his silence, singularly collected on the book while his brows are knit heavily.

Kai lifts his hands and his wards falter and fail within the library, he grimaces and glances to Annabelle, “I’ve got bad news. You have no helmet and my wards aren’t working, so..” he takes a step back and to the side to put her in front of him, as if that will protect him from some kind of mentally invasive magic that may be happening here now.

“Is the book writing something?” Arachne calls attention to the red text slowly fading onto a fresh blank page of the book, having kept her distance, slowly strafing to the right in an attempt to get a better look at it. Her gaze drifts over the faces of the students, then someone, Kai, Matias, and Derek, and especially August. “All of you, can you tell me, what’s currently on your minds?” she urges.

A hand lifts to grasp hold of Dovie gently by the arm, nudging her few steps back and behind Obadiah. “It doesn’t look like we’re affected; non-faculty or students, that is… Curious. I feel nothing but anxiety and fear coming off the rest of you.”

“Trying to keep your classmates from getting eaten by the Self Help Book from Hell,” Amber reminds Obadiah, though her attention remains fully on the phone like her life depends on it as she searches for any trace of the book on places like OccultWiki and Project Crowley.

“Is the book writing something?” Arachne calls attention to the red text slowly fading onto a fresh blank page of the book, having kept her distance, slowly strafing to the right in an attempt to get a better look at it. Her gaze drifts over the faces of the students, then Annabelle, Kai, Matias, and Derek, and especially August. “All of you, can you tell me, what’s currently on your minds?” she urges.

When Mirabel mentions we are well past folders Matias seems shocked and goes to a greater source of folders… Physical student records in the library with transcripts, files, and more on all of these pesky little shi- valuable young minds. He begins to use what appears to be a copied page of a year book with missing faces, but still outlines of the vanishing students and writings about involvements in clubs and the like perhaps less affected to cross reference with any names left that had increasingly high marks near the end of the year and the appearance of the codex which re-writes minds and itself. “We need to know who we are forgetting, find something… A major… a name… a memory that may not have been altered to then use to pull them back. Anchor them.” he suggests pulling several hopefully relevant files.

“I’m okay..” Annabelle answers Dovie, horribly belated, paying attention to something before her eyes and pressing forward. “I’m okay but I might not be. I’ve gotta study, so- um..” She knuckles a tear, “So please be quiet. This is a library.”

“Young man, I saw it first. You can have a look after I’m done with it. I’ll just see if it’s got the knowledge I need to solve this, that’s all,” Mirabel hisses and pulls against August’s grasp, eyes narrowing temperamentally. “Don’t make me give you a demerit during finals week.”

Dovie looks perplexed, whispering to Annabelle. “You don’t need to study. You need to help us stop whatever is going on, this is not the time for trying to get an A plus, it’s time to get us A solution so we can get out of here!” Dovie begins to hum a song.

“I didn’t go to college,” Obadiah says frowning at Amber. “I worked on a cargo ship,” he confesses a moment before glancing back to Arachne and nodding, “I feel… Afraid and Anxious. Though I don’t know of what.” He adjusts his postion to be between the book and Arachne and Dovie, and probably Derek. Kinda his job.

Derek’s expression has gone somewhat numb – he hears the whispers of the book, his gaze locked on the book – eerily unmoving, his chest slowly raising and lowering as he breathes, as if the world around him had vanished – and it was just him, and the voices. He reaches his hands from his neck to clutch at his hair as if just trying to keep his proverbial feet on the ground, his attention cutting to Arachne. “I… I feel like I need it to… well, to…” He trails off, seeming to be in something of a daze.

Annabelle is patient as Dovie talks to her, it almost looks like she’s looking right at her. But her face is tilted towards the subject someone and August find themselves with, and a tiny canine chews at her lip in a passed down mannerism to create a welt of worry as she’s forced to wait her turn.

Annabelle is patient as Dovie talks to her, it almost looks like she’s looking right at her. But her face is tilted towards the subject Mirabel and August find themselves with, and a tiny canine chews at her lip in a passed down mannerism to create a welt of worry as she’s forced to wait her turn.

“You can give me any demerit you like,” August snaps back towards Mirabel, his arm jerked with her motion, but he leans in. A little too close, too harsh in his glare. “If I can get my hands on that first, you won’t have the -heart- to demerit the things I’d write.” A stroke of luck, perhaps, that he’s keeping Mirabel and himself entangled in their effort to deter one another from getting to it first, because they want it for themselves. “Besides, the finals are more urgent – how about I let /you/ take a peek after I’m done with it.”

Matias is unable to put faces to names or even to majors but that feeling of knowing them…. His brow furrows and he goes to a different section of records. Opening these wooden drawers now he pulls out submitted student notes for his own classes. He never prepares write-ups or notes but invites students to submit theirs for others to use. That nagging feeling of familiarity he must have taught these students and so he looks for submitted notes that he cannot remember having read for like any good educator he reads them all… and judges them harshly, with notes to himself and future students who read them or use them to help themselves study with commentary in the margin on their takeaway from ethics or philosophy. Hopefully a personal connection might give him a chance before all connections are re-writen by the infernal codex.

“Umm.” Annabelle blinks at Dovie, and her eyes focus just enough to see the soft blues in front of her. But it’s Dovie’s voice she attunes to. “Umm.. I just need to sit down and- and in one of the empty chairs. There’s a book, fresh pages, a pen, ink like blood. If I just write in it, it’ll.. It’ll help me make something really great. Really important- it’s magic. We’re in a magical place with a volcano and a big tree and-and gore AND SO IT MAKES SENSE, RIGHT?” Annabelle babbles, face Dovie desperately.

Kai hmms and doesn’t bother with Annabelle, instead he climbs back up onto the table to look at what August and Mirabel are arguing about, his lips pressed together thoughtfully, his pupils dilating a bit as he gives up on actually contributing to some kind of solution, instead he focuses on just enjoying the show, his lips quirked up into a grin as he glances from Mirabel and August to Dovie and Annabelle for a moment.

“You can have a slap across the cheek, that’s what you can have!” Mirabel retorts, wrestling awkwardly with August while her handbag swings around under her other arm. Sneering, she tries to wrench her arm free and adds, “If I can get to the bottom of this, I’ll get promoted again and then–let go of my arm or I’ll make you wish you had!”

Obadiah stays back near the Fairchilds, a little out of his depth with all this college stuff, and feeling very much like an octopus out of water. His attention is mostly flitting between Amber and August though as they seem to be the ones leading the charge, his hand on his ritual book, standing ready to assist where possible.

Dovie stares at Annabelle, trying to make sense of the nonsensical. “Make what? What is so much more important than trying to destroy it and leave?” Dovie asks with a stubborn frown.

“ANYTHING!” Annabelle cries out, gripping Dovie’s arms to try and shake the importance of that fact into her. “The solution to any problem! Save people, save mom, save the world!”

…

“No cap.” She sniffles, tear brimming on her cheek.

“Don’t understand half this shit,” Amber grumbles at her phone, pocketing it again, “But says something about mirrored text. Ima try it.” This is directed to Obadiah and Lillian. She’ll sneak. She’ll shoulder. If she catches an eye, she’ll trance to try to get through the arguing College-folk and get to the book, biting a finger to get some ‘ink’ flowing.

With a leap, Kai hops off of the table and looks around, he shrugs and pulls out a little diary that Mirabel might recognize from his backpack and slides into a seat, he opens it up near the front of the diary. Out comes a pen and he starts to scribble away in the diary, his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth, his hazel eyes dilated and shining as he starts to write with feverish intensity.

Derek clenches his fists, breathing hastily as whatever he hears at the back of his head seems to irritate him, fills him with frustration and resolve as much as with fear and self-loathing. “I don’t need help.” he states through grit teeth, some sort of practiced lie or mantra to himself, or perhaps an expression of desperate hyper-independence, one which he himself doesn’t even seem to believe; his whole body seems jittery at this point, like he might just throw something at it, or maybe throw himself at it, seeming torn in two over the prospect.

“Snap out of it!” Dovie yells at Annabelle. “You’re acting hysterical!” Ironic given how Dovie is starting to sound. “We have to destroy it, that will stop it won’t it?”

Obadiah thinks a moment and then goes, “Blood… if the ink is blood I can mess with it, maybe even…. ” He holds out his hand sporting the prismatic pinky ring towards the tussled book…

But August wrenches Mirabel’s arm back to tether her to himself, draw her in, for all of a second in the midst of an intensified stare. Whatever swells in the murky haze of his eyes is beyond words. It’s a lot that swims in his head, whispers at his ears, maybe – but he jerks her aside and away from the table before letting go. “Fuck your promotion, you’re at your station because /I/ allow you to be, woman, lest you’d be the little runt of the litter among Harvesters.” Scalding, to be sure, but his eyes are upon the book again, just in time to get shouldered by Amber trying to get to the book herself. The woman seems to hold more brawn than the stock human August is, so he’s briefly shoved aside.

Annabelle’s lip quivers, and slowly, her eyes turn down to pat Dovie’s elbows and fix a little bit of cocked sleeve that’s Annabelle’s fault for shifting. She straightens and returns, not quite to herself, but someone more helpless. “..I could’ve saved mom, but I’m not gonna hurt someone to do it. I guess you could break it an ruin the good you could do in the world. I don’t study magic.”

Annabelle says “Sounds like there’s more steps to it than that.“

Dovie scoffs at Annabelle, “Look around, it’s weird here. This isn’t doing good.” She looks anxiously back at Obadiah and Amber.

Annabelle looks around indeed, and sets a crooked finger to the table and its chairs. “I guess, like, if it helps, um. Have to sit at the table to eat, right? Burn the table, or something. Or the chairs- maybe both.”

“What are you doing,” Arachne hisses toward August and Mirabel as they fight over the compendium, anxiety creeping into her words, daring a step closer. “Don’t touch that! What if it makes it worse?”

Dovie’s works are so powerful that, for just a few moments, the mental compulsions waver upon the collective faculty and students. However, at the same time, two more students disappear, fading from reality as though they were never there in a fine red mist that seeps into the pages of the compendium being wrested from Mirabel to August. it pulses, as though reeling from a temporary break in its woven magic.

One remaining student, his features twisted in agony, comes to a hazy self-awareness. He raises his hands, the very tips of his fingers reduced to bloodied stubs, and the searing pain of exposed nerves leaves him releasing an ear-splitting howl of agony, knocking back his chair, “I didn’t want this! I only wanted to have a perfec– Who –” He suddenly lurches forward, grabbing a pair of scissors, aiming it toward his ear, and lodges the sharpened blades within his ear. He stiffens, legs bucking, before he seizes and falls to the floor.

Annabelle says “That’s how you destroy knowledge and someone’s ability to help and learn, right?/span>Kai looks sidelong at the guy who sticks some scissors into his ear, “Siiiick,” he says and fishes out his phone with his left hand, unable to stop himself from writing with his right. He lifts his phone and there’s a familiar shudder-click sound effect as he takes a picture of the guy (or his body).

Mirabel lets out a wordless sound of disgruntlement and scowls at August with an air of full-body loathing. “Leave that sort of talk out of our idyllic educational institution, Mister Pierce,” she mutters grumpily, but since she isn’t much of a physical specimen, she remains held. “Goodness, who was that?” she asks after glancing distractedly at the latest student to get swallowed by the book. “This is not–oh, dear.”

Annabelle isn’t quite a nurse, but, well. She’s getting there.

Dovie screams, stepping back.

Obadiah pulls his hand back when Arachne tells the group to stop and slips his hand in his pocket. The sights and sound cause a small curl of his lips in disgust but he seems unbothered by the whole thing, generally.

Kai loses interest almost immediately, however, his phone gets stuffed into his pocket and he hunches forward, his pen scraping out along the paper in tight, messy script. As he fills one page, he flips to the next, his dilated pupils starting to constrict as he focuses upon the work he’s trying to complete.

Annabelle’s hands hover above the scissors, under her breath, like a focusing mantra, she whispers with a shiver. “Don’t remove the scissors.” She doesn’t. “Do-does someone have bandages? I need to keep the-the object still!”

Annabelle rolls the boy over with some effort such at the scissor-angle faces the ceiling, keeping him in a recovery position on the opposite side of his wound.

Derek lets out a yelp, seeming to suddenly come to as Dovie’s work loosens the compulsions just preceding another student stabbing scissors into his ear. He stares – taken between fight, flight and freeze he seems firmly stuck in the third.

Unable to recall the students and then turning to see scissors jammed into the year of someone… Probably not important Matias grimaces. Walking back towards the ground he briefly ignores outsiders to the school and snaps at Kai and Annabelle and Derek, “You… You three.” he says in a chiding baritone of a voice. “You must have heard about this book, finals coming… You see it there… When you think of the book, when you were looking for it, now that you are here with it… Focus. Can you sense intent, do you know what it wants to give you all Valedictorian and promotions within your factions and societies? It can give you anything, it re-writes our memories. You could be the most decorated students ever, but it wants something you are students, -what- -does- -it- -want- ?” he presses all of them, though maybe he’ll start to forget them too…

Mirabel stomps on August’s foot at just the right moment, hoping to free herself from his insolent grasp. Any havoc it may wreak on the student’s attempts at warding are incidental.

“It wants you to shut up so I can concentrate,” Kai replies to Matias with a dismissive, disinterested wave of his left hand, the man barely noticed as his pen flies along the page of the diary he’s writing in. Soon he’s filled another to the margins with his writings and he flips another page, rolling his eyes at Matias, “True. Based and true…” he mumbles in response to someone’ second comment, though he doesn’t look up at the man, his writing hand’s knuckles are white from how tightly he’s gripping his pen as he writes.

“It wants you to shut up so I can concentrate,” Kai replies to Matias with a dismissive, disinterested wave of his left hand, the man barely noticed as his pen flies along the page of the diary he’s writing in. Soon he’s filled another to the margins with his writings and he flips another page, rolling his eyes at Matias, “True. Based and true…” he mumbles in response to Matias’s second comment, though he doesn’t look up at the man, his writing hand’s knuckles are white from how tightly he’s gripping his pen as he writes.

August’s attention drifts alongside Mirabel – and side by side, he’s staring at the student that made a new corpse of itself. It’s the look of someone jaded to violence of this nature – or the apathy of someone who’s spent ages with cadavers. That is to say, his reaction is minimal. Fingers relax around Mirabel’s wrist to let the woman be, even if they’ve made imprints of his digits around the limb he held. Then, whatever happens, happens, and he’s also stomped on the foot to boot – but it’s like August barely registers it, not while one of his eyes thin shuts form pain, and the backlash of an arcane attempt has him sputter out nearly black blood into his palm. Even that fails to garner any of his interest when August throws it all to the wind, and makes a leap to scramble up on the table and get the book in his hands.

As Thomas walks in Matias is imploring students to think! To use their noodles! He is trying to reach these keeeedz and might draw the librarians attention in the hectic library.

Arachne’s features pale, her composure shaken when she realizes that the students who were huddled around the table have all but disappeared into the book within August’s possession, save for the upperclassman who forcibly deafened, and likely lobotomized himself with scissors, that someone so desperately tries to save. Blood oozes out from around the scissors lodged so deep within the ear canal, consciousness fading as he murmurs, “No… more… No more…” with a hissing breath.

That moment of clarity is waning fast, and Amber’s attempts to begin writing names within blood counter-clcokwise seems hard to do, with only a few names of the students that came up in her search still lingering on the tip of her tongue, waning steadily.

While Matias attempts to press information from Derek, Kai, and August, it’s the Pierce who holds the book that suddenly seems to be in danger as the book seems to thicken inexorably within his grasp, its pages doubling in volume as even Lillian, Dovie, Obadiah, and Arachne find themselves struggling to recall the names, memories, and faces of Derek and August. “Wait, Amber — Amber’s idea… it might be for the best. We should…” Arachne struggles to form words, her eyes glazing over, head turning to look toward August, Derek, and Kai in confusion. “… I — Your names, what were they?”

“Hey! Stop that! Mister Pierce, get down from there!” Mirabel yells and lurches forward to grab for August’s leg, squinting indignantly. “Mister Ashford, quit copying off of others’ work, for once in your life, and stop him or he’ll run away with the thing! I know him!”

Arachne’s features pale, her composure shaken when she realizes that the students who were huddled around the table have all but disappeared into the book within August’s possession, save for the upperclassman who forcibly deafened, and likely lobotomized himself with scissors, that Annabelle so desperately tries to save. Blood oozes out from around the scissors lodged so deep within the ear canal, consciousness fading as he murmurs, “No… more… No more…” with a hissing breath.

While Matias attempts to press information from Derek, Kai, and August, it’s the Pierce who holds the book that suddenly seems to be in danger as the book seems to thicken inexorably within his grasp, its pages doubling in volume as even Lillian, Dovie, Obadiah, and Arachne find themselves struggling to recall the names, memories, and faces of Derek and August, even the newly introduced Annabelle. “Wait, Amber — Amber’s idea… it might be for the best. We should…” Arachne struggles to form words, her eyes glazing over, head turning to look toward August, Derek, and Kai in confusion. “… I — Your names, what were they?”

“It… It said it could… help me with finals. That if I didn’t… write that my family would… disown me, that I’d… fail, that everything would… fail.” Derek states with a numbness to him and stilted words, as though the thing had robbed him of his expressiveness… but then his eyes track up as August scrambles to get to the book, and a sort of life returns to him. “…What are you doing?” he asks almost as an accusation, and he seems to have caught himself in that moment, reaching out to stop him.

Dovie is paralyzed with fright.

Annabelle takes a pair of socks from her bag and proceeds to use them as a tie from one side of the boy’s neck to around his ear. The other, she uses within that loop to stabilize his head. “Shhh-shhh.. Someone loves you, someone loves you. It’s hard to live but life finds a way if you let it…” She murmurs with a dying sob in her voice. Something in the genetics, or perhaps just manifested deep in the back of her psyche, distances itself from the subject with hard, needling stare down and begins to get to work.

Thomas steps inside — hurries in, really. There is a look, immediately, to Matias. “What is happening?” he asks the other professor, crossing quickly to him as he looks around to scan the space in the library. His eyes focus with some, dire concern — even if he does not know what is going on, exactly, there is magic afoot. He looks to Matias for some explanation as his eyes search between Mirabel, Dovie, Derek, Annabelle, August, Obadiah, Kai, Lillian and Amber.

Obadiah pinched his brow a moment as the book tries to rewrite his memories, his thoughts reaching forward to grasp at mental straws before he waves his hand through the air trying to ward Lillian, Dovie, Arachne and himself against this bullshit

Amber continues to uselessly try to write in blood with her fingers. It’s like fingerpainting but worse. She isn’t one of the students here, and it just might be because she’s an idiot. But she hears Arachne though and nods, “Yeah. It can’t erase what’s written in reverse. Write what you can remember, but backwards.” She explains with less brevity than before.

“It’s this book!” Mirabel yells over her shoulder to Thomas. She and August are seemingly fighting over it, though the student has got ahead of her and climbed onto the table where it is. “We need it more than they do!”

“Miss Kane and August are fighting for a book.” Annabelle determines to Thomas in a clinical half-sob. “It does whatever you want it to but you turn to red mist if you write in it. I’m saving this boy because there are scissors in his head but there shouldn’t be.”

Kai’s tongue remains sticking out of the corner of his mouth, though his lips start to slacken and a little trickle of spittle begins to drool down the side of his mouth, his bright hazel eyes dulling and glazing over as he continues to write mindlessly, less and less aware of those around him as he fills entire pages of his little journal with words – who’s to say if it even makes any sense. He turns yet another page, the young aeromancer scribbling wildly across the pages, the rest of the room and its inhabitants lost to him.

When Thomas comes closer, “The Book… I think it has eaten people. It re-writes itself and the users. It was created by a Memory Mage and several upperclassmen must have been gone other-” and then there appears to be fights breaking out over the book and some students studying as hard as they can to their own physical degradation. “I think… Amber realized writing backwards or reverse is not affected we can encode information against being touched, but I do not know what is important. I am trying to get the students to tell me what the book wants, it seems to want emotion, motivation maybe?” he explains in a hurried brazilian accent to Thomas and then adds, “They have discussed destroying it Hale… We cannot let them destroy the codex.” Matias says insistently

August falls face-first, book in hand, because of Mirabel’s hand at his ankle. It’s like he doesn’t even hear Derek’s accusing voice, or Mirabel’s own chastisement. The bastard *was* going to run off with it, it seems. And he still might, because he brings his other hand to his mouth to let loose a shrill whistle. One that calls down the mummified bat down from the rafters to crash into Mirabel’s face and clutch on – but it barely has claws to speak of, and it’s attempts to get those wicked teeth in might be fought off rather easily.

August, meanwhile, turns to sit, throws laptop, book, whatever’s on the table off by the sheer haste of his movement in kicking away to the other end, “This is mine!” His anger is evident, “You don’t deserve it, it’s *useful* to me, not *you*,” Accusing, but whatever the book compelled, it appears to sting more than the blood that trails down the edges of his mouth while– August stops rather dead in his tracks to stare at Arachne when she fails to recognize him, and the book is held less vehemently.

Annabelle devolves into a medical apparatus, draining into the core of what Windermere dreamt her to be. Annabelle who smiles and studies to be a nurse. But beyond that is a skeleton of a psyche. And, to save itself, it falls back into the dream.

Mirabel lets out a startled shriek and reels backwards, flailing her arms to fend off the bat. Stumbling, she wrestles with the minion for a short while before she manages to wrench it off and fling it away. “For the love of…!” she pants, glasses askew. Her gaze swivels towards . “Oh, no. It got, er… it got that one.”

“Of course we can’t let them destroy it,” Thomas tells Matias, turning to look at the book. Is he compelled by some dark power? He doesn’t sound compelled — but he does sound very interested. “There are vaults,” he says. “Safe places, where a chain can wind round and round and round a book even of dark and awful power,” he shares. “But of course: to do that it must be contained,” he says, emerald eyes alight as he looks at the book.

“For the love of-” Derek begins, seeming more and more frustrated by the minute as the thing toys with his memories, clutching his forehead as more and more of his memories are toyed at from the thing. “They’re not yours! You’ve no right!” he cries out as though replying to the codex, his arms stiffening with utter frustration as the thing continues pulling at them, before he gives his hands a flick – and then he’s glancing at one of the nearby stacks, tipping it and letting countless books topple to the floor before he attempts to wind up and chuck the entire bookshelf right into the midst of the fiendish codex, with luck landing in the midst of its table – whether to draw the attention of the others, or to create space between the thing, or maybe even out of sheer frustration and desperation is anyone’s guess.

Kai’s head bows, his dull eyes staring blankly down at the pages of his book as he continues his furious writing. With his mouth hanging slack, he continues to drool on himself, his breathing shallow, the only sounds coming from him are the scratch of pen on page and the occasional flip to the next page, focused entirely on his work, oblivious to the other happenings in the library.

The group finds their collective knowledge of the occult seeming to be harder and harder to recall, all but Amber who has began to inscribe words in reverse upon herself by blood. Worse still, the oppressive energy of the Compendium within August’s grasp is almost oppressive, compelling the Pierce to impress his own knowledge upon its pages, even while Obadiah, Arachne/span>

“When it comes to books, I don’t imagine we’ve got a higher authority than you,” Mirabel/span>Amber continues writing, the rest of the room seemingly devolved mostly into chaos. It isn’t fast going. Reverse is hard. Names first. And she waves Matias over, “You had reports of previous missing ones? Or something? If we don’t know what we need, need to just try the shotgun approach. Come on.”

Funnily enough, it’s almost a cartoony sigh. The student council president is too dumb and awestruck by where he stares – and the throwing of the shelf is registered too late. It falls right on top of the desk he sat himself on, and there is a loud crash that pins August in place. The book? It’s held out, perhaps in an effort to save it from harm – but what’s visible once the dust settles is only a hand sticking out through the shelves with the compendium in hand, with August trapped underneath, possibly hurt. Most likely hurt.

When Thomas enters the room and begins to try and interact with the book Matias feels the influence ebbing from his mind and touches his brow… Muddled thoughts and a difficulty concentrating on the very topics that might help them solve this mystery lead him to say. “Students… Faculty… Education, knowledge… It.” turning to look at Thomas and then snaps at Amber, “Start recording our names, all our names, our titles, our majors… No one else matters if -we- disappear.” he says with a sudden urgency.

Obadiah looks around confused as more and more memories start to overwrite with new and different information, “Who… who are you people?”

Thomas cries, “The book!” It’s some long and longing look at the tome, as Thomas steps towards it: it’s a look like one might give a lover. He steps towards it again, but there’s a pause. “If I read from it,” he shares with Matias and Mirabel. “It will do everything it can eat all that I have,” he says. “But I have some idea,” he says, his eyes bright. “Matias, can you ward my mind? I think with a mindward it will try — and fail — to eat what I know,” he says. “With but a moment of the magic ceasing, we will be able to ward it shut and lock it away.”

Kai can’t even be bothered to blink at this point, his eyes tearing up and leaking twin tears down his cheeks as they try to keep themselves from drying out. Scritch scritch scratch. The pen continues to move determinedly over the paper of his journal and he flips to the next, now starting to write onto the desk around the journal when he runs low on paper. This seemingly happens without his notice as the slack-jawed student continues his fervent writing.

“Are you sure we can’t control its power with the professionality and austere, unwavering responsibility that we’re known for?” Mirabel asks Thomas, looking a little conflicted. She adjusts her glasses and heaves a sigh before adding, “You’re the librarian, dear colleague. We’ll assist you.”

Arachne manages to rouse herself from her stupefied reverie when a bookshelf that Derek hurled toward the compendium goes toppling down over August, and the Pierce is trapped beneath it with the book. Her eyes round, quickly darting toward the afflicted faces around her, before she urges, “Can someone help me lift this bookshelf off him?” She moves toward one end of the bookshelf, desperately trying to find an angle to leverage the heavy wood off the pined man.

“Is that student still alive?” she has the mental capacity to ask of Annabelle while desperately checking on Obadiah, Dovie, Amber, and even Kai while Mirabel, Matias, and Thomas attempt to work out a plan of action.

Matias does not in fact try to ward Thomas mind instead making an arcane gesture to try and dampen the influence of all magic in the immediate vicinity. “Hale, we are always in its influence. We tried warding our minds after entering. It has not worked.” he cautions as he makes a different gesture this one now not relevant to wards but some kind of memnotic tick. His brow furrows as he looks at his hand and then around the room. “There is a way… to preserve our knowledge… Not within ourselves.” now he sounds like it is not such a bad idea to… you know feed the book, eternal knowledge is a bloody finger nubbins away.

Obadiah holds up his hand to Arachne, moving back close to Dovie and taking her hand to drag her away if they have to. “It’s fine, I’m fine,” he tells Arachne. “I just… I need a minute.”

After chucking a bookshelf which finds itself pinning poor August in place, Derek stands, tired, down but not out, staring at the book with a fatigued expression and rubbing his hand against his mouth, a couple tears having run down his cheek in the process despite his expression being one of grim determination. He gives his blazer a brush, eyes peeled keenly as if expecting the thing to pry more despite it being (at least physically) somewhat contained for the time being. An idle glance is spared to August, an unspoken apology, before he looks over to Arachne as she requests assistance; he stares for a moment, as if taking a moment longer than usual for words to ‘hit home’, before he makes his way over to work at un-pinning the Pierce.

Dovie is frozen in fear and lets Obadiah drag her if needed.

“Not your swift combat wards,” Thomas tells Matias. “Did you fetch a bell, book and candle?” he asks. “Did you draw a circle in chalk and blood?” He looks at the book. “A true mindward can defeat most anything,” he says. “I –” He shakes his head. “I just found a secret that could help this, too,” he says. “But I do not have the power to realize it.” He pauses, and then he goes to reach for the book from whomever has it. For a moment, he just cradles it close.

“Professor Alejandro, I’ve come to suspect that it’s a bad idea,” Mirabel informs Matias and steps closer to put a hand on her colleague’s shoulder. “If we both work together, we may be able to join our expertise and safeguard Professor Hale’s wits while he overpowers the book.”

Thomas looks to Mirabel and Matias. “August, too, has power. Any of you who can join together for a mindward ritual,” he says. “It wants my mind. If my mind, and only mine, can be protected — I can be the bait. It will be to the rest of you to chain it shut once it clamps hold of my psyche.”

Annabelle doesn’t respond. If life finds her, its biological, the cognitive aspect locked tight away somewhere so close and so far.

Obadiah says “I can ward… if someone leads “

“Very well, but I’m quite cross with Mister Pierce right now,” Mirabel tells Thomas a little tersely. “Has the young man come to his senses?”

Amber ducks reflexively when a BOOKSHELF goes flying. “The fuck?” she calls out over her shoulder, losing track of her writing. As she’s looking over her shoulder, she spots Arachne. She fishes her phone out of her pocket, “Arachne. Come on. You’re way better at this than me. I found this about the book. Can you make better sense of it?” It’s the article she found earlier, full of information she can’t understand. “My plan didn’t work.”

The book, for now, has clattered off from August’s hands and onto the floor. He’s trapped, after all, and there isn’t much that he could do. When the bookshelf is lifted off of August by the joint efforts of Arachne, and the perp himself, Derek, just how human August is compared to pretty much everyone here becomes apparent in that, he’s out. Concussion. Blood at the edge of his temple, he lies sprawled on that broken desk beneath the splinters of what parts broke on top of him.

When the book falls, Thomas goes to pick it up, holding it with both arms against his chest.

“I tried when I came in, but if you insist Hale.” Matias says as he produces what appears to be a box of chalk and begins to draw a circle… hopefully it is a warding circle and not some kind of memory circle… “Professor Kane, assist me?” he says distractedly

“A protective circle, Professor Alejandro, not a protective oval!” Mirabel mutters to Matias.

Arachne attempts to heave and push the bookcase up off August, her heels struggling to gain traction on the blood-slicked floor from the upperclassman that has long since stopped seizing by Annabelle a few feet away. She doesn’t have the mental faculties to even look at Amber when she comes by with the information. “What even was your plan? I couldn’t hear it over the faculty arguing over the right steps. It seemed like you’re the only one not affected though,” she realizes, looking aside to study the woman distractedly. “What were you saying about mirrored words?”

Once August is free from beneath the bookshelf with Derek’s belated help, she lets it drop back into place, her hands reddened and aching as blood rushes back into them, then turns to look toward the others.

Wards are near impossible to complete because the group is lacking the knowledge to do so because the Compendium has been steadily cannibalizing the knowledge from them, replacing it with information that was not originally there. It’s Thomas who is most at risk, as the influences of the book lessen just enough from the others to make an attempt upon him. Curiously, though, it’s only Amber with her reverse words written in blood that’s obviously unaffected, her memory in tact and unmolested.

All at once, Kai/span>/spanPerhaps unaware of Matias and Mirabel’s failure to ward his mind, Thomas opens the book. He concentrates, murmuring some incantation in Latin beneath his voice, and those with some supernatural hearing might hear his heartbeat go thump-thump-thump in an effort to guard his mind against the book’s influence. What power, though, does some simple folk charm have against the book? Who can say: he begins to read, hoping to devour the words slowly as they devour his own thoughts as those around him race to contain it. Bait, even if he is not sure if anyone has brought rod and reel.

“No! Professor! We didn’t–” Mirabel yells and extends her arm towards Thomas, wincing fretfully. “Professor!”

Amber takes a step back from Arachne a moment, and it is now – perhaps – she realizes she is the only one unaffected. She attempts to grab Arachne and pull her with, but she’ll approach the book whether or not she succeeds. “Everyone shut the fuck up and write something you know, ANYTHING YOU KNOW, in the book. Mirrored! It’s the only thing that’s worked so get your asses over here,” she shouts. Fuck the library. If she has to get physical or stare someone down with magic vampire eyes, she will.

Thomas holds the book in his hands, open to the first page as he reads. He is not giving it up to another person, but seems to be doing nothing to resist others writing it as he reads the text… or the text reads him.

It is indeed not a good time but then Amber is shouting and he looks back towards her… Did he make such a mistake, when creating the book in the 17th century. Does mirrored writing break his brilliant invention or at least the implanted memories? “No that cannot be right…” Matias says while looking at someone with the book in hand. “We must write it in the book?”

It is indeed not a good time but then Amber is shouting and he looks back towards her… Did he make such a mistake, when creating the book in the 17th century. Does mirrored writing break his brilliant invention or at least the implanted memories? “No that cannot be right…” Matias says while looking at Thomas with the book in hand. “We must write it in the book?”

stumbles after Amber as she’s drawn along behind her, her head turning to throw a worried glance toward August in a fleeting moment of clarity, of memory returned, before his name fades from the tip of her tongue. The book is still within Thomas’s possession, which has seemed to make it all too easy for it to access the librarian’s wealth of knowledge directly, just as it had with August, and even Mirabel, in the brief contact they had.

Touching it is a bad idea, but it’s apparent that Amber’s protection is clearly from mirrored words inscribed in blood, as the influences lapping out in waves bypass her to dry and siphon more knowledge, and energy again, from Derek, Obadiah, Mirabel, and Kai who, amazingly enough, has actually neared completion of his essay. How academic, focused, and very mindful he is.

May not be drooling like Kai but certainly Matias’s brain has reduced to jello… All blocks go in the square hole today.

Thankfully, Obadiah isn’t very smart so the book doesn’t get much from Mursula in the way of pure knowledge but does provide a fair bit of energy.

Mirabel lets out a squeal of discomfort and grasps her head, reeling backwards a little. “Thomas!” she shrieks through the chaos. “Shut the book!”

Matias falls to a knee and holds the small of his back as if he has been injured. “Gah…. No… It cannot be.” he says in a not so brazilian accented english and instead he says, “How could you… Do this to me?” he looks at Mirabel and says, “How could you betray me.” he draws his hand from his back and looks at is as if it were covered in blood. “I could have done more.” then he looks towards the book in someone’ hand and says, “I could have perfected it… It has flaws.” perhaps grevious flaws… flaws other people are shouting about.

Matias falls to a knee and holds the small of his back as if he has been injured. “Gah…. No… It cannot be.” he says in a not so brazilian accented english and instead he says, “How could you… Do this to me?” he looks at Mirabel and says, “How could you betray me.” he draws his hand from his back and looks at is as if it were covered in blood. “I could have done more.” then he looks towards the book in Thomas’s hand and says, “I could have perfected it… It has flaws.” perhaps grevious flaws… flaws other people are shouting about.

Derek breathes slowly, staring over to Amber, then to Thomas, then to Matias skeptically, looking over to Kai with brows raised, then back to Amber. “…Okay.” he states softly, making his way over to the book, skeptically moving if able to try and dip his fingers to some blood, whether from a vial or perhaps from the blood of the poor nearby student who’d stabbed himself with scissors – he doesn’t seem really irked in that moment by anything, a neutral, collected expression masking his underlying tension – at least currently. He winces as the thing continues pulling away at him, and he raises an arm as if trying to cope with it.

@Kai’s name is stricken from the collective memory of the group, fading from each mind one by one.

“What is going on?” Obadiah/span>/span“Tackle him! Get the book out of his hands!” Mirabel suggests and urges Obadiah towards Thomas. “Do something!”

Kai mindlessly works at his thesis, adding little ritual drawings with a confidence or lack of care he doesn’t tend to have when drawing actual ritual circles. The pages of the journal begin to fill with the writing of a manic madman, pages flipped as each begins to fill. A near constant stream of tears leak from his face as he remains bent over the paper.

Thomas replies to Obadiah, drawing across words with a finger, “I just need to read a little more.”

Amber slumps where she stands, nearish the book, as her plea seems to fail too utterly for strength or hypnotism to persuade everyone. She pulls out her phone as Derek does start to imitate, scouring over the text she found. She remains a bit of an idiot vampire, though, and simply cannot piece together what she’s missing on her own. For now, she’s visibly at a loss.

Mirabel’s request of Obadiah seems to be the least worst option at the moment, and he gets low and charges at Thomas, apparently intent on taking the man to the ground.

As Obadiah begins to line up with Thomas Matias on his knee acting as if he has been stabbed suddenly tries to lurch to the side and intercept the man… to preserve the book and Thomas’s reading of it.

“No! Matias, what are you doing?!” Mirabel protests and stares incredulously at her colleague. “Goodness gracious, this is–hmph. Stop that right now! I’ve got seniority here, Professor! Cut it out!”

It slowly dawns upon Arachne that Amber has, at the very least, had the right of it. She has barely managed to prick her finger upon the tip of one of her daggers to begin writing letters quickly to form a sentence and buy herself time.

Derek’s salvation comes at last when he mirrors the work of Amber. His mental faculties return, but it is difficult to ascertain what is genuinely his and what has been replaced.

Kai finds himself capable of writing papers as though he were Einstein himself on his chosen topic of aeromancy. Knowledge he could never dream of flows at his mind’s fingertips, but at the cost of his self-identity. Something is wrong, as parts of him seem to fade away as the book finally gorges itself so full at long last because of Thomas. It reads him faster than he can probe its deeper secrets, and it revels at what it finds. The air suddenly thickens, rendering breath hard to siphon into their very lungs, and coherent thought incapable for anyone who did not manage to write at least some word in reverse.

[OOC: If you did not manage to write anything backwards, please do a try with stamina to maintain consciousness and coherence.]

August is already unconscious and very incoherent.

Derek looks over his shoulder after scribbling a mirrored detail of himself to Kai, squinting as he writes away, as if unsure – staring for more than a moment. And then… He states, “You… You look so familiar. Have we met…?” It seems his memory’s not all there yet. Before that can really be answered – if the manic thesis-writer could hear him – his gaze cuts back between Matias, Obadiah, and Thomas, seeming to take in just what he might even want to do to unravel this mess.

“You cannot exploit the flaw! I have to fix it.” Matias/span>/spanThose who have not warded themselves with mirrored words are spared due to Thomas’s sacrifice, as it seems the Compendium’s influences lessen just enough before it can rob them of higher functions, some of what it’s stolen returning bit by bit. Everyone except for someone, that is. Safe she may be within a dream, her body is not. Breath becomes steadily difficult, a haze overcoming her mind, and her body shudders with the effort of her lungs to fill themselves.

Those who have not warded themselves with mirrored words are spared due to Thomas’s sacrifice, as it seems the Compendium’s influences lessen just enough before it can rob them of higher functions, some of what it’s stolen returning bit by bit. Everyone except for Annabelle, that is. Safe she may be within a dream, her body is not. Breath becomes steadily difficult, a haze overcoming her mind, and her body shudders with the effort of her lungs to fill themselves.

Obadiah recoils when struck by Matias. “Ow!” he says, shocked by the professor’s prowess with fisticuffs. “You hit me!” He takes another step back and holds his nose, trying to get the bleeding to stop.

The very air itself seems to shudder before, suddenly, the Malvernis Compendium slams itself shut within Thomas’s grasp. What ever it has found within the professor has sated its once insatiable appetite for now, releasing the others from its snare, but the students and faculty who were lost cannot be returned.

Annabelle’s fingers pat away over the boy’s face like she’s combing hair, and then, concussed, her eyes roll up in the back of her head and she careens to crack her head on the side of the wood..

At least she’s wearing a helmet.

“Goodness, no!” Mirabel/span>/spanAfter punching Obadiah Matias is snapped too by the book closing and Mirabel’s reprimmand. He stumbles back and looks down at himself and then the blood on his knuckles. “What… happened?” he asks confused and then looks at Mirabel and Annabelle struggling to breath. “Did… Did we lose anyone?” and then he looks at Thomas and the book. “Did we secure the book?”

More and more, Thomas begins to lose memories: the thing that make him. The things that he remembers, the things that are part of him. Except… some of those memories, perhaps, aren’t real. Thomas will tell anyone that he has lived ten years now in New Haven, but of course: that is a trick of fate. What that he remembers is real at all? What that he remembers means anything? What matters, what matters most of all… is the knowledge. He turns the page, and as he does, the first girl he kissed burns away in favor of knowing what it felt like to smell the plague in the streets of London in Shakespeare’s time.

And then the book shuts. Thomas looks at it, and it is as if he has lost a piece of himself.

Amber seems to come out of her moment of self-misery as she becomes aware of Derek and Arachne succeeding with the method. Her gaze is drawn to Matias, noticing the altercation and hearing his words. She looks about to shout something, but it seems something has shifted. She closes her mouth instead, for now. Nothing to be done once the damage is done.

Slowly but surely, even the memory of Kai himself returns as the malus of the Compendium subsides from the collective group’s mind. However, Kai may find himself disturbed by the fact that something is missing, but he does not know what. Maybe it isn’t anything important at all. At the very least, he’s written a draft full of information that would impress even Thomas.

Obadiah pinches his nose shut with his fingers, making a point to not get too close to Amber. His face is flushed, with embarrassment at the whole ordeal, shifting away from everyone and near the back of the room

Derek rests still, allowing himself to sit, hands in his lap amidst the chaos of a splintered desk, the bookshelf he’d tossed just earlier, scattered papers from Kai’s first thesis, and other remnants of the chaos, and he just sighs, exhausted, tears streaming down his cheeks despite his relative silence. He probably looks a mess, though probably not so much as August – poor guy.

Kai opens the claw that his hand has become, his pen falls from his hand and he blinks several times, then presses his hands over his eyes, rubbing at them firmly, groaning quietly as he starts to come back to himself, his body remains hunched over the table as he tries to get a hold of himself.

Mouth tightening with determination, Mirabel/span>/spanAs Thomas blinks back to focus, Thomas says, “Chain up the book!” He hugs it shut, now. “For now, it’s sated — but there are silver chains in my desk,” he says, to whoever is nearby: Mirabel, Matias, Dovie, Derek, Obadiah or whoever is near. “Get them: they are for just his sort of circumstance.”

Arachne shakes herself from her reverie, having only bought herself a modicum of protection. Exhaustion weighs heavy on the monarch as she moves toward the upperclassmen near dead on the floor, bending over to check his pulse. “He’s good enough to be given to the Concordat,” she murmurs under her breath, before heading immediately to check on August, trying to shake him loose from unconsciousness, worried. “August?”

Amber mostly just stands here for now, taking in the aftermath of the chaos with some degree of impassivity. All a bit overwhelming. She notes Obadiah and the blood. Hunger doesn’t come to her first, but the realization that her finger is all bloody. She sucks on the finger a moment to clean it, brow furrowed in thought. Thomas’s request gets her attention a moment, but as one of the few non-locals to this campus, she seems inclined to leave it to someone who knows where the desk is.

Kai slowly gets up to his feet. He leaves the journal he’d been working in as well as the pen. His blink open, bloodshot and red and clenches his eyes shut once more, “Uugh… Raise your hand is you still think I’m an asshole,” he says, squinting at the others around him, a hesitantly hopeful expression on his face.