• The end of the portal led to what seemed to be the foyer of a mansion, bizarre stairs seemed to wind around the giant room, soft morning light shone through partially shattered windows. Craynun clung to Jean like a little girl.
    "What kind of dump is this?" Jean said sharply.
    "It-it's the labyrinth of-o-of philosophy." Craynun's new form seemed to act completely different from her previous one, not only was her appearance changed with her emotions, her entire personality was.
    "I found it when I f-first came into the sp-sp-spirit phase, I never would have survived if I hadn't found it..." Craynun started walking, looking at all the old broken things, she seemed half disappointed.
    Jean looked up, the stairs all made formations that were indeed, labyrinthian, they swirled and zig zagged around eachother, each set of stairs led to a door, stairs often branched out of others, connecting one set to other doors. There were different levels of doors, but no set of stairs seemed directly linked to any level. The giant web of stairs that seemed to reach into the heavens was a dizzying sight.
    "I'm going to go find the main library...If you want you can come with me..."
    "As much as I'd love to do schoolwork, I've been tossed into all this spirit crap, tricked into bleeding my hands out, and fought a giant undead monster. So far the only thing I've gotten out of this entire thing, is a katana and a crappy power from blood and bonehead. Now if it's okay to make a choice out of my own free will, I think I'm just going to go to sleep."
    "Alright...I'll be on the third floor, the only wooden door is the main library."
    Jean slumped down on the wall,
    "Got it, if I ever wake up, I just hope it won't be in this place." Jean flopped her head back on the wall and closed her eyes, the last thing to be heard was Craynun walking up the stairs. Jean was so tired she almost experienced the process of falling fully asleep. It was a black sleep, no dreams or nightmares, just a crushing darkness.
    When Jean awoke, the sun was low in the sky, she groped for her memory, and when it finally came to her she regretted it, all spirits and ripaways and skeletons. Jean stood up and rubbed her eyes, she felt her side for her katana, and realized it was missing, she started looking around frantically, her eyes finally came on a giant wolf like creature. It had the same features as a ripaway spirit, but this one reeked of something entirely different. The giant wolf was of course a black billowing mass, its discerning feature was a giant purple flaming eye on its chest, the beast itself had no eyes. The katana was in the ripaway's claws, the giant flaming eye drifted to Jean.
    "You know, I've just about had it with you things. Go chew on a bone, not my katana." Jean said, in a daze. The ripaway seemed to enjoy Jean's harsh words, the giant flaming eye blazed, this thing not only seemed different from ripaways, it acted different, it just gave a sense of being completely different from ripaways, this thing had intelligence, but that didn't make it seem any better. The wolf dropped Jean's katana and bolted off, Jean walked over to the katana and picked it up.
    "I don't know why I keep this piece of junk..." Jean said as she strapped it back onto her belt, then turning around to look at all the stairs, none of them seemed directly connected to the second floor, Jean took a good look at the interwebbed stairs, and riddled out which one to take. The awkward stairs ocasionally required her to duck under another overpassing set, or walk at awkward angles to get around them, eventually Jean reached the second floor. The doors on the second level were as strange as the stairs, she arrived at a set of double doors made of steel that looked like the entrance to some sort of castle, two torches glowed either side. Jean couldn't help but take a look, she swung the doors open, and was immediately awed by a massive row of gallows, and innocent looking people walking up to them, with their hands bound, even children were staggering towards their doom.Jean slammed the doors shut and quickly backed away. She looked at all the doors on both sides of her, she didn't need to see anything else like that, so she proceeded.
    Oddly enough there was a normal set of stairs, going directly to the next floor, they looked rather run down, like no one cared to clean them, even all the other broken and dingy things around the labyrinth weren't quite as dirty as this set of stairs. Jean decided to take these stairs, and was taken to another dirty archaic thing to go with the stairs. A dusty old wooden door stood in front of Jean, its hinges were greened brass, cobwebs were all over it, a skeletal hand lay on the floor in front of the door, it looked as if it were gripping the doorknob before it died. A hand print could be made out through the thick dust on the knob, obviously not the skeleton's. Jean opened the creaking door and unfortunately, came to another neglected thing.
    The room behind the wooden door was a massive library, impossibly large bookshelves surrounded the room, in the center of all the bookshelves, was a giant circular table.
    A new formed Craynun sat in a chair at the table, books piled all about, Jean approached her to get a better look. The new Craynun looked like a young adult, with long red hair and glasses. She wore a white T-shirt and black jeans, her face was in one of the many books around her. Craynun looked up at Jean and yawned.
    "Morning sleeping beauty, you've been out for nearly a day."
    "Almost thought you'd gone soft."
    "It's a side affect..."
    "What've you been doing in this place?"
    Craynun stretched her arms out and yawned, then spoke again.
    "The explanation is fairly strange, there was a race of learners, debaters, people of science and philosophy, they built this labyrinth tower, to riddle out every single controversy, mystery, and theory. The purpose of the rooms is still unknown to me, but I think they harness something... Each one contains some sort of situation, they must have used them to recreate something related what they were trying to figure out. But this library is something different, they kept all of their findings here, so there is almost nothing here that a mortal couldn't learn. The beings that occupied the labyrinth eventually became so obsessed, that they did nothing but debate their lives away, eaten away by curiosity and ambition, eventually they stopped caring for themselves, they wouldn't stop to eat, sleep, bathe, or anything, they even beat themselves to stay awake. There are a few left I think, all the way at the top of the labyrinth, still adding new questions, but never answering them, but that leaves us with their library, and almost every answer."
    "Something tells me, that we won't live to see the right book."
    "All the better reason to start looking." Craynun said, gesturing towards all the books.
    "Ugh, I suddenly wish something were trying to kill me again." Jean rolled her eyes, went over to a bookshelf, and reluctantly grabbed a book.