A GHOST floats through the doors of the library.  "Yo, Dantallion."  Weyland greets him with a wave.  "I'm back."<br/><br/>Dantallion, dressed the part of the eternal scholar, looking endlessly old, smiles his wrinkled smile.  "Mister Mathers." he greets him.  "And is this a first year?"  he introduces himself to Max.  "Dantallion.  I've been here hundreds of years.  There are none who know the library or Nacodsaed better than I.  Knowledge is power, my unending hunger has kept me here."  He explains his existence as if it were his position, like the school janitor, who might tell you that filthy, disrespectful young people have trapped him in Nacodsaed for an eternity.<br/><br/>"Care to help me look something up?"  Weyland asks him.  "I'm teaching this year, getting a full Professor position if I do well.  The woman I'm working under, she's new too, you haven't met her, Professor Chevalier, teaching Defense of the Dark Arts.  I had hoped Granny would still be teaching."<br/><br/>'Granny' was the Defense against the Dark Arts professor when Weyland was in school.<br/><br/>"Ah, she's moved.  Brazil, actually.  At least last time I spoke to her.  She said she wanted to travel, warmer climates.  Old bones.  I empathize."  The ghost says.  "What do you need to look up."<br/><br/>"I smell a challenge.  Professor Chevalier wants me to prove myself.  Maybe she wants to prove herself too, to the Headmaster."  Weyland was intuitive, if not studious.  Intuition kept you alive under pressure.  So does action.  And information.<br/><br/>"She's seeing me in her office tomorrow morning.  I want the advantage.  I want to know the battleground.  Get my defenses in order.  Is she going to throw the book at me?  A test of academics?  I'd bet overall competence as a teacher.  See if I can keep my head about me, solve problems.  Monroe, I'll talk to you inside."  He walks in, with Max and Dantallion, through the library's huge doors.<br/><br/>"Max, fetch a book of Nacodsaed maps.  Just over there, a shelf with tomes all about the school and the area.  Find...umm...The Island and it's Mysteries....Hoffstetter, Hoffstein?"<br/><br/>Dantallion corrects "Hoffenstein."<br/><br/>"Right."  He asks Dantallion.  "Any ideas, oh knowledge beyond knowledge?"  He laughs.<br/><br/>"Never did study much."  Dantallion bristles imperiously.  "You have your ways, though.  Hmm..."  He ponders deeply.  "There are many creatures around that would jump at the chance to test a young wizard's mettle.  The troll clan in the caves.  The Devourer's Valley houses innumerable vile monsters.  The faeries, the most sociable group in the area.  A test involving other students would be appropriate, if this Professor Chevalier can organize them in one night.<br/><br/>"How about I cover all the bases?  Trolls are easy, stupid.  Devourer's Valley was a field trip with Granny in my third year.  I can handle men, especially students.  I've been in a faerie field, it was hell.  I know curses and wards to scare them.  There's a divination a man in my squad used to escape it.  True Sight.  I should look that up....it'd be helpful no matter what, kills illusions and deceptions all ring false.<br/><br/>"Divination.  You know where to find it.  Gramm's Treatise on How to Light a Liar's Pants on Fire.  You'll like it."  Weyland runs to grab it, and meets Max at a small table in the center of the library, on which is another potted piranha plant, connected to the rest of the library by it's web of vines.<br/><br/>"Monroe."  He nods.  Monroe looks on with interest as Weyland flips the pages.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>