Eight Intertwined II

227 - Time

Ophilia, Olberic, and Alfyn's first objective of the day was to return to the library in Duskbarrow and look around. Ophilia knew she shouldn't have gotten her hopes too high about finding anything there, but she still wanted to hope that perhaps there would be something left behind for them to use. Much of the knowledge in the library was ancient and would not do them much good in terms of figuring out what was going on in the present, but they needed any information they could get their hands on. They may not have been afford to spend all their time in Duskbarrow with so much left to search through, but they could at least set aside a handful of hours to sort through all that Lucia had gathered there. 

Ophilia was hoping they would come upon an old notebook of Lucia's that would explain why she had done everything she did in the name of getting her hands on From the Far Reaches of Hell. She was interested in immortality and clearly wanted to find a way to live forever, but it felt as if there was more to it than that. Could she have planned all of that out on her own? Or was there someone else out there who had pointed her in the right direction? If that was the case, then who was it?

"Do you remember what Odette said when we spoke with her in Quarrycrest?" Olberic asked as he led Ophilia and Cyrus deeper into the ruins toward the library. "She said that the previous headmaster of the Royal Academy in Atlasdam was killed under mysterious circumstances just before Yvon came to power. She thought there was something of note there, but we never came upon any other information about that."

"I have to wonder if Yvon was the one who did it though," Alfyn admitted. "After all, he was a pawn for Lucia's game the entire time, wasn't he? When he died, he told us that he had been played for a fool or somethin' along those lines. That means Lucia was the real mastermind, and she could have asked him to go after the headmaster for her."

"She wanted to use that power that came with being the headmaster without ever holding the position for herself. It would have been easier if she could access the information of the archives without needing to worry about the responsibilities that came with looking over the school," Ophilia confirmed with a nod. "If she orchestrated the death of the previous headmaster in the pursuit of power, then there must be at least a few traces of that information left behind. We need to search for them too."

"If she left anythin' behind before she died, then I bet it would be here," Alfyn said. "She didn't have much of a reason to leave anythin' in Atlasdam as long as she wasn't really concerned with the academy there. Here, on the other hand..."

"We did not find any notes in From the Far Reaches of Hell when Cyrus looked through it, but that does not mean she did not keep any. In fact, I would argue that she had quite a few notes somewhere for the sake of pursuing immortality," Olberic chimed in. "If we can find that, then we should be able to look behind the curtain a bit as to who was responsible for all of this."

"Do you think she was working with Mattias and Simeon?" Ophilia found herself asking softly. "I don't like the idea of that, but... It feels like it could be possible. Mattias and Simeon clearly had a connection through the magical seal, but... If Lucia was trying to learn more about the power hidden behind the Gate of Finis, then it would make sense that she was collaborating with Mattias at least a little bit."

"I feel like there's somethin' here we're missin' though," Alfyn confessed as he rubbed at the back of his neck. "I don't know how to put a finger on it, but I feel like there's some other detail we haven't found yet. I feel like it would make everythin' else make sense, but I don't know where to start when it comes to findin' out what it is or where it could be hidin'."

Ophilia nodded, her gaze finding the grassy path beneath her feet. She couldn't help but feel the same way even though she didn't know what they were missing. None of them knew what could have happened out of their reach, but they knew there had to be at least something they hadn't yet noticed. They had a lot of pieces, but there was still one connecting link missing. Just where did it all tie together? Who was the true mastermind behind all of this?