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[color=#663399]Location:[/color] Dungeons, Strange Academy
[color=#663399]Grimore:[/color] 
[color=#663399]Skills:[/color] 
[color=#663399][url=https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d4/6c/1c/d46c1c5169bd9889042630ffbed7e50f.jpg]Fit[/url][/color]
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Annika stood as Cassie got up. She smiled at Jake’s eagerness to keep everyone safe. However, there was no way Annika was going to stay in a room with all of these people. Unless they were camping. She wasn’t completely sure she believed Cassi’s statement about being fine, but who was she to question it. Annika nodded, stepping aside to look back at the hole in the wall.

[color=#663399]”I believe Frankie has the body. At least that’s what it sounded like. Should we take the head with us?”[/color] She looked over at the others, wondering how they felt about that plan, when she noticed Rohan’s plight with the magpies.

Annika was used to animals being more human-like from time to time. Her familiar was one of them. But she hadn’t seen magpies act like this before. She cocked her head to the side, like a curious cat, as they started to peck at Rohan’s mouth. Annika remembered the birds did seem to want them to come down here to look for the head. Perhaps they were trying to tell them something?

Annika stepped closer to the head, peering through the hole Cassi made. Something bulged around the mouth. 

Curious.

Annika made a bigger hole in the paper wall and stepped through. Nochella, ever present when weirdness was afoot, guided her over to the head. The black cat seemed to melt around the head as Annika knelt down. After a brief outer examination, Annika pulled the corpse’s lips apart—revealing something that shouldn’t be there.

[color=#663399]”Curious and curiousor,”[/color] she quoted. [color=#663399]”What do you suppose this means?”[/color] she asked whoever dared to look with her. 

Between the lips of the head rested three dead beetles, each bearing a different head. One with the face of a dolphin, another with the face of a seagull, another with the face of a panda. All bearing a Mexican sugar skull design on their back.

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[color=#B22222]Location:[/color] Library, Strange Academy
[color=#B22222]Grimore:[/color] 
[color=#B22222]Skills:[/color] 
[color=#B22222]Fit[/color]
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Cal’s eyes tracked Nicky as he moved the hand Cal brushed to his lips to kiss. Cal felt flushed and quickly looked away. He cleared his throat, shifting in his seat to make a real effort in unlocking the mystery of Kramer.

The sound of Cal’s pen scribbling notes against paper faded into the background as Nick spoke. The faint smell of cigar smoke and the taste of strong brandy tickled the back of Cal’s throat as late-night memories of Haven circled through his mind. Memories where everyone else was sleeping, leaving three awake to talk about lives long gone. But those were the rare moments. The ones that passed quickly and weren’t spoken about again until too much drink loosened minds and memories once more.

The text Callaghan read on Kramer revealed that he was the father of the witch hunts. A German priest with a penchant for communicating, Kramer wrote the [i]Malleus Malificarium[/i] and circulated it because he saw a perceived danger of magic. His evangelic-like being whipped his congregation into a frenzy against his supposed “enemies.” He created a movement that would culminate in hundreds of years of bloodshed, despite the Church's ultimate condemnation of his work many years later.

Cal switched his focus from writing to Nicky once the witch spoke his name. Cal set his pen down, marking his place in the text before he took the journal.

The sentences within were definitely those of a madman, but Cal couldn’t help but feel there was something there. Some secret, some obsession that Kramer had to tell the world. Cal felt a sudden kinship with the dead man, despite his questionable practices and narrow-mindedness.

As Cal continued to stare at the pages, searching for what Nicky saw, 14 eyes swam beneath the pages. They seemed to drift aimlessly until they noticed Cal watching, then focused on him. 

[color=#B22222]”Were they eyes?”[/color] Cal asked. He was transfixed by the unique 14 eyes. Were they the disciples of Kramer? Or something other? He felt their curiosity, realization, and then despair pressing against his mind before a sudden wave of exhaustion overwhelmed him. Cal blinked rapidly, feeling wobbly and suddenly dropped the book. He shook his head in an effort to dispel the blackness that was creeping along the periphery of his vision.