Wirt and Beatrice continued to walk through the thick forests. Occasionally avoiding certain paths that appeared suspicious to them both.
"So...what kind of other spells can you cast? Anything in there that could, you know, destroy and fix all this?" Wirt asked.
"Wirt, no, the Tome doesn't work like that, most of it isn't even spells, just gibberish." She sighed, raising her leg over a fallen tree.
"Oh, well, think I can take a look at it?" He asked.
"I don't see why not." She sighed and handed it over to him behind her. "Just don't drop it, pushover." She chuckled.
"Tsk." Wirt rolled his eyes and began to skim through the pages, seeing if anything caught his eye. Many of which did, some was in English, albeit a bit harder to understand, given the time period it was likely written in. "Huh...well, hey!" They both looked up to see Langtree's schoolhouse being surrounded by the Beast's undead.
Looking down at his axe, and then to Beatrice and gave her back the Tome of the Unknown, she smirked.
"Go get them, Wirt." She smirked. Wirt smiled and quickly charged at the monsters with his axe lowered to gain speed quickly before swinging hard on one of the monsters. Making sure that they weren't paying attention, as he was mostly destroy by surprise from behind. Quickly clearing them out and checking out the perimeter for any remaining undead.
That is until he came across the bodies of a skinny man in an oversized business suit and another in a gorilla costume.
"Oh no..." Wirt looked down at the cadavers.
"Wirt..." Beatrice walked up to him and saw who laid beneath him. "Oh no..." She gasped. She looked down at Wirt and gently placed her hand on his shoulder.
"I caused this..." Wirt said. "This is my fault." He fell to his knees.
"No you didn't...its just..." She sighed and laid next to him. "Look...this isn't your fault Wirt. This is why you're on this pilgrimage, because you're on your road to redemption." She said, wrapping her arm around him.
"I wish I'd never accepted his offer..." Wirt sighed. They remained silent, until they heard singing coming from inside.
"Is that..?" Beatrice looked up along with Wirt and both of them quickly rushed toward the front of the schoolhouse, breaking the front door and running to the dining hall in the back.
In the middle were the dinner tables stacked above the other, forming a small barricade around the animal students and Ms. Langtree.
"I love your loving arms
They hold a world of charms
A place to nestle in when I am lonely~"
Langtree sang as she sobbed and craddled the piggy student in her arms in comfort.
"Are they gone?" She asked, her makeup running from tears.
"Yes." Wirt answered.
"Are daddy and Jimmy..?" The vulnerable teacher couldn't finish her question.
Both youths shook their heads.
"Oh no..." Langtree cried out. "Well...I can't protect these little darlings by myself. Daddy and Jimmy were protecting them from the monsters and now they're gone!" She cried.
Wirt and Beatrice looked down at the floor.
"We can help you." Beatrice said as she held out the Tome of the Unknown, casting a spell, suddenly a blue light appearing from where they stood, leading away from the school and in the direction both of them were walking from. "This line should lead you back the way we came. There's a mansion that is offering shelter. In order to get in, you must say 'The Pilgrim's Tea'." Beatrice explained.
"Will we encounter any more of those things?" Ms. Langtree asked.
"No, you should be fine." Wirt said. "The man who lives there is my uncle, and he'll keep you guys safe indefinitely until this whole debacles' over." He gestured to the path.
"Alright...children, please hold hands and follow the blue line. We'll be safe, hopefully." She sighed, clearly distraught.
"Oh, wait!" Beatrice called out to the teacher. "We wanted to know if you understood any of this gibberish." She said, opening the tome to a specific page.
"Oh, alright, let me just..." Langtree squinted her eyes to look at the page. "Oh my..." She said, looking through the runes.
"What?" Both teens asked.
"Well, it appears as though you're in luck. This page shows the Beast's darkest secret in runes." She admitted.
"What?!" Beatrice and Wirt asked again.
"The Beast's soul is in the Lantern." Langtree revealed.