The husk remained in an almost trance like state as Lucia's fireball delicately danced about it. It was only after a few moments of blank staring did the creature move, but instead of showing even a bit of the interest in the ball of fire it turned in an uneasy fashion towards Lucia and Erratus. The husk looked almost identical to the first husk they had run into at the guild hall, its skin was blackened, dried and cracked, its body was extremely slim as if the creature were starving and its face lacked any clear definition. Though there was just one thing that set this figure apart from the one they had seen before, from the deep black crevices where his eyes laid in shadow a gentle stream of blood was emanating. The husk remained in its position, just staring at the pair as the ball of fire continued to spin about it before it frailly reached forward and grasped the ball, setting its body ablaze in the process. As the creature burned it made no noise, it simply backed away and fell against the academy's outer walls. All the while it continued to stare at the pair through the fire that was devouring its body and slowly spreading to the near by tall grass.

Erratus watched as Lucia pulled a strand of fabric from her garment, observing the subsequent spectacle with sadistic glee. He chuckled as the husk burned, albeit thankful that it didn't make any noise. However, the spreading fire would soon overtake a good portion of the run-down academy's lawn, as well as cut the thief and his companion off from the entrance.
"Well, let's go." He said quickly. "We don't have time to wait for the fire to die down." And with that, the thief made a sprint across the yard toward the unbarred window. He didn't bother to see if Lucia was keeping up. It wouldn't even really be much of a loss if she didn't make it. Hell, for all he knew, she had a way to put the fire out. In any case, priority was making sure that at least one of them got inside.

Lucia watched carefully and was horrifically surprised as she saw the husk with the stream of what she thought was blood following from where its eyes should have been. Even though the creature could have chosen to attack them at that very moment it instead grabbed onto the dancing ball of flame that she was struggling to keep under control while fighting the growing feeling of sickness welling up inside her as she saw it burn. It was as if the thing had committed some sort of suicide.

She didn't hear what Khast had said, and only knew that he was running to where they had to go. Not bothering to look back at the scene ever again, she ran across the lawn to the unbarred window.

"Hurry up" she whispered, and she climbed through the window after the man.

It didn't take long for the pair to create mayhem out of the situation they were handed, though Lucia and Erratus handled the newly create mayhem fairly well and avoided getting caught up in the fire outside that was burning away at the husk's corpse and the decayed, but wet grass. Now inside the Academy the two 'brave retrievers' found themselves in a long room that seemed to run dozens upon dozens of metres perpendicular to window that was used as an entry-way. The walls of the room seemed to be covered in what appeared to be different colours, perhaps art? It was entirely too hard to tell as time had taken its brutal toll upon the room, colours appeared washed out and faded, dust gathered thick like mud, and general dilapidation had set in. What could be seen was the stone floor, which created an odd clicking noise when Lucia and Erratus' feet touched upon for the first time, and rows of glass cases standing upon small sets of legs that ran side by side perfectly down the center of the room. Some cases were shattered and missing their contents, others were intact and holding a myriad of foreign objects and not so foreign objects, like books and odd sceptres, the room in a way was fairly reminiscent of the museum in the Guild Hall where their whole journey began. Something also strangely reminiscent of the Guild Hall was also in the room, a group of seven husks who seemed to be almost patrolling about the room, luckily none were near the window at the moment but slowly and surely a single husk was making his way towards the windows, its concave eyes fixed upon the top of each case as it shuffled along.


Three exits presented themselves before the pair, a door almost immediately to their left which seemed to empty out into a large foyer area, a door far across the room which a barely readable sign overhead designated as the "Library of -", or the pair could simply exit the window and find another way inside...

Erratus landed softly on the other side of the window and quickly surveyed the area. The first thing he noticed, much to his dismay, was that several more husks were ambling about inside. The pair were now in what appeared to be some sort of gallery, displays lined up in glass cases throughout the room. Fortunately, these provided ample cover for sneaking around the lifeless creatures that had overrun the chamber. There was a door immediately to the thief's left that he could only assume lead to the academy's lobby. Considering how many husks were likely to be there, taking that particular exit seemed far from ideal. At the far end of the room, there was another door, though to where it might lead he could only guess. There seemed to be some sort of sign above the doorway, but...
"Does that say what I think it says?" The nomad inquired.

Lucia looked to where the man was indicating after doing a double take of the alarming presence of roaming husks. Her heart leaped at the sight of the word library, all that information simply waiting to be tapped into, but the question remained as to whether it would be in their best interests to look for this vault in the library. She looked once more at the other entrance, it led into an open area, one that could be possibly filled with husks, then again, who was to say that the library itself didn't have any husks lurking in its dark bookcase-lined corridors. Not sure what decision to take, she looked to the thief for direction.

"Yes," she responded softly, "Do you think it would be a good idea to take that route? I'll follow your lead."

Erratus nodded in response, though he was a bit disappointed that Lucia had not read aloud what was written on the sign. His question, though carefully worded to draw out information without revealing his disadvantage, had not heeded the answer he was looking for. Regardless, whatever was behind that door would almost certainly be better than the one immediately to their left. The only problem was that it would be more difficult to reach.
"Alright, keep your head low, and follow me." The thief whispered as he began picking his way through the room, keeping the displays between himself and the limping husks at all times. He didn't even want to imagine what might happen if they were spotted.

Nodding silently, Lucia never one for many words followed Khast's lead as he walked towards the library. Even though she had set in stone the notion that the man was most definitely a thief, she doubted he had ever undertaken any heist such as this. She truly hoped he knew what they were doing, for the slightest mistake could leave them trapped in the school, dead, or even worse. She shook her head not wanting to think of the "even worse" and pressed onwards, keeping her wits about herself as she made sure not to do anything that would attract attention to herself.

Sneaking carefully and skillfully across the room the duo met very little resistance. The husks seemed rather occupied in their patrols and took no notice of Erratus and Lucia who were right under their noses. Once the pair had made it to the end of the room and through the decrepit doors of the library, which admittedly took quite a bit of force to open, they were met with a peculiar sight.

The library sat before them and beneath them. Erratus and Lucia appeared to be on the upper level of a two level library, with the upper level being a balcony that ran about the rectangular length of the room. The upper level walls were covered in bookshelves and doors that seemed to lead to a plethora of places and the floor was covered with books and tomes that more than likely were ripped off the wall by Gennenburg's incessant shaking. The stair case to the lower level more than likely collapsed as a large section of the balcony which once stood directly to the pair's right had collapsed some five metres down into the first level leaving the two only one option to go down, jump...

The library beneath was a rather remarkable place in itself. Book shelf upon book shelf, rows upon rows, hundreds of thousands of texts could easily fit within the labyrinth of cases which ran from wall to wall in every which direction, going everywhere in the room, save the very center. In the center of the room was an elevated platform which was accessible only by a ramp and closed off by ornate iron gates. Inside the gates there appeared to be a desk and a small collection of books. Perhaps they were important? Beside this elevated platform there was a also a set of stairs that ran down to the lower levels of the academy, one would hope that these stairs would lead Erratus and Lucia to their overall objective... Only two obstacles laid in the way, the missing upper level stairs, and a mass of some 40 husks who had spread themselves thin across the entire lower library...

Erratus scratched his head absently. So this was a library. It felt a bit odd being surrounded by so many things that were so useless to him. Absolutely nothing worth stealing here. In any case, that was the least of his concerns. The dozens of husks roaming around the room were the worthier obstacle by far. At the other end of the chamber, however, he could faintly see a set of stairs that appeared to lead downward. Perhaps it would lead them directly to their mark. He pointed to it.
"Let's head straight for those stairs." He said decisively. "It should be simple enough getting past these creatures."
With that, he dropped discreetly from the balcony onto one of the many bookshelves below. With any luck, he would simply be able to hop across them the entire way.

Lucia's eyes widened as the man bounded away onto the tops of the bookshelves. She however was neither as brave nor as nimble. Unfortunately for her she had no other choice but to attempt to leap over each gap as the husks held sway over the ground floor. Just her luck. Taking her time she climbed onto the top of the first bookshelf, and shakily stood on its top. The fear of falling to her undeath or falling to be mauled by the husks was enough to keep her incredibly focused on her present daring goal, so she did not stop to think of the bountiful wealth of knowledge of magic that lay beneath her feet.

Taking a sharp breath she ran along the top of one bookshelf and jumped to the next. During mid-flight she had closed her eyes, so when she landed on the next bookshelf on both of her feet she was slightly reassured and surprised that she had survived. However her ordeal was far from over. Taking another breath she jumped to another bookshelf, and then jumped to another bookshelf. Each time she made it she felt relieved but then her relief would quickly vanish as she watched Khast bound ahead without her and that she had so much farther to go. She continued her venture taking care that she did not slip up as she went onward.

Leaping quickly along the bookshelves that skirted the room, Erratus and Lucia met no resistance. Well out of the reach of the husks, they had nothing to fear, save for their own fallibility. The girl was having a bit of trouble keeping up, which was really no surprise. The agile thief supposed that not everyone could expected to be as adept as him at this sort of thing. Before long, the nomad reached the center of the room, and the last bookcase in the row. The distance between it and the next was far greater than anyone could leap, and a raised platform was between them anyway. For a moment, the barred off dais caught the thief's eye. It was locked up pretty well, so it only made sense that its contents would be rather valuable. Erratus stopped for a moment to gauge what their next move should be. Lucia reached him shortly.
"Suppose those would be worth much?" He asked her, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the platform.

Having eventually caught up, Lucia found herself panting as Khast indicated to the area in the centre of the room. Catching her breath she further examined their situation, yes, they (meaning him) could probably get in and out of there fairly easy and retrieve the books, but at the same time, was it worth it? Had the books simply been in their path as they ran through the school, she would've felt much more obliged to grab what she could hold, but down below there were so many husks, was it safe?

"Probably" replied Lucia softly, "They wouldn't have made some sort of protective barrier around them otherwise, though, don't you think it'd be too dangerous to attempt to get anything within this room?"

The thief replied with a simple shrug. Then, before Lucia could protest, he ran and made a leap toward the platform. At the last second, he reached out and grabbed onto the bars of the cage surrounding it. Quickly, he shimmied up the bars until he was standing on the ledge of the platform.
"No sweat!" He called from the center of the room, a rather grave mistake. He had alerted nearby husks, and they began to converge on his position, circling below him like sharks. No time to lose, Erratus quickly drew his staff and pushed his slender arm through the cage, trying to reach the potentially valuable contents within. However, his reach was just shy of the tomes on the pedestal. His short-lived and ill-fated heist had come to an abrupt and disappointing end.
"Curses." He muttered under his breath, then turned to Lucia. "You'll have to go around." He said, indicating the bookshelves next to the one on which she stood.

"No sweat!" ....

Erratus' voice had echoed far and wide and though his call had caught the attention of the destinationless wanderers beneath him, it was what he awakened behind him that would now prove to be the most... troublesome.

"Mmmm-masssssk" a voice gurgled out from within the sealed off area as figure clad in blue robes arose from the darkness that laid beneath the table that was holding the tomes Erratus had been just attempting to apprehend.

"Where!?" the voice erupted as the figure flailed its body against the bars in an attempt to grab and maim and Erratus. A husk, the creature's face was concave, greyed, blackened eyes and missing teeth. Its hands shriveled yet its nails were long and sharp like claws. The figure was a talking a husk!