Liliana XIV
It was just Wednesday, and Liliana was already exhausted. She was sure that staying up late and creeping around an old library in the middle of the night wasn't good for a person, but apparently such practices were quite common for the Anubis House Sibuna club. She would have been fine, Lili reflected, if she hadn't had a whirlwind weekend as well. She was thrilled to participate in her first Anubis house game night, but between her homework, girl's night, and her online shop orders she was running low on energy.
There was plenty of good which came out of her sleepless weekend though. She had been able to hang out with Nina and Amber on Saturday and really get to know them better. One of the things she had learned was that Ambs would make a wonderful school representative, the girl had spent a significant part of Saturday night outlining the policies that she would want to put in place. Lili had tried to find out if she would really be interested in the position if it were to open up. Amber was totally on board, but apparently Mrs. Andrews had decided to keep Mara in the position and refused to hold new elections. Amber revealed that she had planned on running again this year and actually revealing her programs in her campaign speech instead of just relying on her popularity as a way to get back at Mick and Mara for hurting her, which had been her strategy the previous year. One of the main issues with Mara being elected is that she saw her win as just another check on her resume. All of the reforms she had suggested in her election speech had been swept under the carpet.
The blame for her inaction though could not be solely placed with Mara. The teachers had apparently created the role as a distraction for the Sibunas last year. Regardless, the role could be an important one if used correctly and Lili really wanted to see what Amber could accomplish if elected. It was this thought process which had brought Lili to where she was now, standing outside of Mrs. Andrew's classroom.
Knocking on the door Lili tried to get the professor's attention, "Mrs. Andrews do you have a minute?"
"Come in Liliana!" called the greying lady. "I was just cleaning up. Give me a hand and we can discuss whatever it is you want".
Accepting the eraser, Lili got to work cleaning the whiteboard. "I was coming to discuss the Student Representative position Mrs. Andrews".
"Oh? What about it?"
"I was wondering when the elections would be held this year. I know several people who would be interested in the role".
"Is that so, well I hadn't planned to hold them this year since Mara is doing such a wonderful job!"
"Yes, but wouldn't it look great for Mara's transcript if she was reelected this year?"
"Well yes…"
"And it would be a great Journalism exercise for someone to follow the campaign. Why it could be a section of our newspaper each week!"
"That would be great. I will have to think about it Miss Wells, but thank you for bringing this to my attention".
"Of course Mrs. Andrews! And I do hope that you will consider me to cover the election proceedings when the time comes. Have a great afternoon!".
The professor simply waved the victorious girl out of the room as she was deep in thought. Heading over to her locker Lili noticed Mara coming out of Mr. Sweet's office with a wide grin. Rolling her eyes the blonde turned her attention back to packing her bag. Closing her locker Lili put her headphones in and made her way home to Anubis House.
*Tears of Gold – Tears of Gold – Tears of Gold*
Walking into Anubis from the back door she could hear voices coming from the living room. The view from the kitchen allowed Lili to see that it was Mara and Jerome. The past few weeks had shown Liliana that she had to make her peace with the friendship. Jerome was allowed to be friends with whomever he wants, but that didn't mean that Lili had to like them though. Helping herself to an afternoon snack Lili was only half paying attention to the conversation in the other room.
"Try to guess why I'm so happy" began Mara.
"Because there's a trigonometry test tomorrow and you're weird" sassed back Jerome.
"No, although I do like a good trig test… I suppose you dont want to know the location of the suit of armor after all" 'wait what? Jerome's dad's armor?'
"What you found it?"
"Yes, but you're not interested."
"No, Mara, Mara don't do this to me!" Jerome begged.
After a pause Mara continued, "Sweetie uses it as coat stand in his office".
"His office? Now that is interesting…"
"Don't ask me how you get into it though" with that it seemed like Mara had left the room. Exiting the kitchen Lili made her way over to the couch.
"What was that all about?" Lili asked handing Jerome half of the apple she had cut in the kitchen.
He accepted the apple slices with a smile, "Mara was just telling me that she found the suit of armor!".
"Really! That's great news"
"Yeah apparently it is in Mr. Sweet's office though, which is always locked".
"Well I can pick the lock for you. We just have to figure out his schedule and find out when he will be away long enough for us to get in there and search".
"So a stakeout?"
"Yeah, I would like to avoid another late night breaking and entering if possible".
"Yeah, I'll ask Alfie if he wants to help with the stakeout".
"Speaking of Alfie, did you learn anything more about the 'Sibuna' nonsense he is wrapped up in?".
"Not really, He basically confirmed it when we were in the library last night. Knowing them they will ask for help when they need it. Hopefully nothing too bad is going on at the moment".
"Unfortunately the looks of dread as they left class this afternoon don't really support that theory. I'm thinking we should get involved soon". As if summoned by her words the group in question crawled out of the bread oven, led by a dirt covered shaken Nina Martin. The girl ran off to call her gran as soon as her feet cleared the oven. Fabian followed after her, clearly wanting to offer her some support. Amber and Alfie came out of the tunnel last. They were both dirt free and appeared to be significantly happier than they had been for the last several days.
Locking eyes with Jerome, Liliana silently asked if they should just confront the couple now. Searching his blue eyes, Lili saw the same desire for answers and honest communication that were reflected in her own.
Nodding, Lili called out to the pair and kicked off the reveal. "Amber, Alfie we need to talk".
The guilty looks on the couple's faces was all the answer Liliana needed. "Why don't we take this to our room?" suggested Jerome.
Quickly agreeing the group of four moved to a more comfortable and secure location for the intervention. "So guys, do you want to clue us in on what is going on with you?" started Jerome from his spot next to Lili on the bed.
"Well I guess Ambs should probably start since she's been involved in all of this the longest".
"Ok, before I start though I need to know everything Lili already knows about Sibuna so that I don't waste time covering stuff that isn't necessary" decided Amber.
"Well I know that there is a murder cult led by Victor, a dead kidnapping psycho named Rufus Zeno, you rebuilt a mythical cup which was stolen from a pharaoh's grave, and everyone walked away from the year with buckets of trauma".
"Wow, ok you actually know a lot more than the rest of us thought, but I'll give a little bit more background. The first thing you need to know is that everything screwed up in this house will ultimately lead back to the Frobisher-Smythes. Their grave robbing lead to this entire campus being cursed. The last living Frobisher-Smythe, Sarah, befriended Nina last year and activated her various chosen one powers.
"What kind of powers?".
"Dream visions, the house talks to her, a magical necklace that will only work for her. It's all kinda freaky, but Neens rocks it like the badass that she is" Alfie explained.
"Anyways, with her powers activated Nina, Fabian and I started Sibuna to find the treasure that Sarah told us to find. That of course turned out to be the cup of Ankh, which The Society was also looking for. Alfie, Patricia and Jerome joined the quest after encountering Rufus or The Society at different times. In the end Nina put the cup together and we all thought she had destroyed it".
"Wait what do you mean 'thought'?" cut in Jerome.
"Well apparently Sarah's ghost called her back down after we all went to the prom. The cup was perfectly fine, despite being in the lit furnace, and Nina hid it so that The Society couldn't use it to murder anyone. So fast forward to this year, Nina starts dreaming about this freaky ghost lady who was apparently freed when Nina built the cup. The ghost lady told Nina that she needs to find the Mask of Anubis or she will die".
"What's the Mask of Anubis?" asked Liliana. The rest of what Amber had said lined up with what the boys had told her.
"It's apparently this funeral mask that the couple stole when they were working in Egypt. The ghost then tattooed Nina to show that she could kill her. We found a doll house that used to belong to Sarah Frobisher-Smythe, and she has been using it to send us clues about the various tasks we have to solve in order to find the mask".
"Yeah there are a ton of spooky tunnels under the house that will eventually lead us to the mask. Unfortunately you need one of these to access them" added Alfie pulling out a necklace. "These amulets disable the first boobytrap in the tunnels. Amber was blinded for a whole day when she went into the tunnels without it".
"Ok, so how do we get one?" asked Lili already starting to plan how she could fit Sibunaing into her schedule. It would be tight, but she could probably make it work despite all of her other responsibilities.
"Well that's the thing, there are only six amulets. We don't know what about them shuts off the trap so we can't make new ones".
"Is there only one entrance to the tunnels?" asked Jerome.
"Yeah, we've only found one entrance/exit" ok, well Lili and Jerome can just work as reserve Sibunas and do research, and anything not tunnel related.
"Can you fill us in on what tasks you've already done?"
"Let's see, there's the hopscotch task to stop the falling ceiling, the bottomless chasm and heavy balance beam".
"That's when Patricia and I got involved. Amber, Nina and Fabian needed help lifting the beam".
"Then we had to cross the chasm on the beam while avoiding sharp swinging pendulums. Those were freaky, luckily the pendulums are gone, but we still have to pass over the chasm each time. We also had to crawl in this creepy tiny tunnel full of bugs, dirt, skulls, and worms. That's where we just were. Nina was able to find the lever in the tunnel and open the door for our next task. All we know at the moment is that it is a giant spider web covered in painful venom".
'Ok, so that was a lot of information at once' thought Lili. "Well thank you for being honest. We are only able to keep you safe and ourselves if we know what is going on".
The guilty looks that the pair exchanged did not put Lili at ease. Jerome clearly caught it as well, "What are you two still hiding?" he pressed.
A quick silent argument later Alfie rolled up his pant leg and Amber pulled down her sock revealing matching Jackal tattoos. Oh those had better not be what Lili thought they were, "Are those the evil spirit tattoos?".
"yeah we got them last week when the spirit wanted to motivate Nina to work faster" explained Alfie.
"Is that when you woke up screaming?" questioned a concerned Jerome as he got a closer look at the tattoos.
"Oh yeah, I forgot you were there for that. It burned like crazy".
"So are you all included in the death curse as well now?"
"We think so, Senkhara, the evil ghost, wasn't very clear. We are just operating under the assumption that if we don't complete the task Alfie and I will be killed as well".
"Anything else you two are hiding" asked Jerome sarcastically as he fell backwards down onto the bed.
"Nope! I think that's it for the moment" remarked Alfie cheekily.
"Is there any way you guys can keep playing dumb about the whole Sibuna thing?" asked a nervous Amber. "I totally want you to join and think you would be a great help! It's just that Nina is the leader and technically we are supposed to run these kinds of decisions past her first. I just need a couple of days to warm her up to the idea".
"Sure Amber" agreed Jerome, "Lil and I will just keep doing what we are doing, but please keep us informed, even if Nina doesn't know". The pair agreed and soon the group headed out to dinner and then onto a night of homework and plotting.