Skylor sighed, slipping on the sunglasses she'd been given yesterday. She was starting to grow bored of being so sedentary. By now, it was well into the morning. The search party had just left, leaving her and Cole behind.

Speaking of Cole. She glanced over at the black lump on the bed; it had started moving, and now Cole sat up with a sleepy groan, before blinking and looking around the room. Skylor had to snicker at how confused he looked.

"Hheyyy, what're you laughing at?"

"Oh, nothing." Now how much longer would it take him before he realized …

"Where is everyone?" Evidently, only a few seconds. "Did I sleep through them leaving?"

"And through them arguing over where to start. And through breakfast."

"... Oh." One dismayed moment later: "I missed breakfast!?"

Skylor snorted. Of course the foodie of the group would be upset about that. "Just how much did that shift take out of you?"

"Heh." Cole shifted and got out of bed, wincing as he put his weight on his legs. Hm. "Good question."

"Say," Skylor started. "Is anything wrong with your legs?"

Cole raised a brow.

"You made a face when you put weight on them," she pointed out. "Is everything alright?"

"Oh! Yeah, I'm good. Just … really, really sore from all the walking we did yesterday." Cole's brow furrowed as he stood, muttering something under his breath. Skylor couldn't make out anything but what sounded like "Jayy …"

"I'll just walk it off or something."

"What, now?" Skylor watched him stretch gingerly. "And did I hear something about Jay?"

She'd woken up in the middle of the night, another gift she could thank her concussion for, right as Jay and Cole had tiptoed their way from the passage leading out of their room. Waking up the next morning almost made her brush it off as a dream, but now she was starting to second-guess that conclusion.

"Ohh, nothing. Just how tiresome he is," Cole grumbled. "Wouldn't even go right to sleep when it was my turn to keep watch."

"Really. How come?"

"Yeah, just wouldn't shut up about something stupid. I don't even remember what it was." He squinted at her. "Why do you wanna know, anyway?"

"Sorry." She held her hands up appeasingly. For a moment, she'd had that feeling she was occasionally hit with, where something was just begging to be investigated, but she dropped it now. Cole wasn't interested in talking, it seemed, and she truly didn't want to antagonize him given the grand old time they'd all had so far. "I was just curious."

Cole waved her off. For a moment, neither said anything … and then he yawned.

"Heh, sorry." Now it was Cole's turn to apologize. "I guess that little nap wasn't good enough for me."

"You're still tired, huh?"

"Hey, come on," Cole groaned. "I stayed up half the night. Don't tell me you wouldn't be."

"Alright, that's fair," she chuckled, shelving the fleeting thought that maybe something more than night shift had him tired. "... You can get some sleep now, if you'd like."

"What? But it's just the two of us!"

"The door's locked," she reminded him. "And if anything comes up that I can't handle, I can always just wake you."

"I don't need to sleep that bad, though," he protested.

"Oh, yes. That's why you're still rubbing your eyes," she said drily. The earth ninja froze in the act, then hesitated for a moment.

"You won't be too bored? I can imagine that's bad enough even with another person in the room. Or, heh, who knows, maybe I'm making it worse," he chuckled. "But, uh, really."

"I have something to do." And she did. Honestly, getting Cole's help on it would've been the smart move, but she wanted to see how much of it she could do on her own. Plus, he was clearly still tired. "Sweet of you to care, though."

"Pssh. When you're friends with Jay, you learn what to worry about," Cole snorted. Skylor laughed for a moment, too—she could imagine.

"I'm serious, though," Skylor repeated. "If you need the sleep, don't let me keep you. Goodness knows you could definitely use every last bit in here."

"... Thanks." Cole plopped back onto the bed. He was out like a light in minutes. "Don't need to sleep that bad," he'd said. Sure.

Skylor pulled out the notepad she'd been writing on all of yesterday, mentally switching gears the best she could. Here came the task: how much could she remember from what they'd learned last night? And what still remained to be learned? The person staying in this room before them had been friendly with Garmadon, and felt betrayal at the master of earth's treachery, making them a likely ally of the Elemental Alliance, if not a member themselves. Furthermore, Garmadon had given them a report of Serpentine movement in the Woodlands. It seemed to her like they were working together to defend from the rogue gangs mentioned in the letter.

Of course, they didn't know anything for certain. All she could do right now was extrapolate, but there were far more questions than answers to satisfy them. Who was the owner of the satchel? Had they lived here or were they a visitor, caught up in whatever barred the forest from knowledge of the past? Chances were, they had played a role in whatever had transpired 40 years prior, haunting the mansion now. This mysterious figure, Garmadon, the Serpentine: they had all been players in a larger game, and it was impossible to guess who had won.

That was even assuming there were any winners. The search expeditions had discovered skeletal remains and signs of violence at every turn—splattered on the walls, ravaged into the furniture, scattered on the floor. Hearing about it yesterday, combined with the little she'd seen, had made her stomach twist, and having grown up with her dad and his friendly neighborhood cult, she liked to think she was relatively unflappable. It would be easy to jump to conclusions and assume the destruction was the result of a Serpentine assault on a war refuge.

It couldn't be that simple, no. There was always a wrench to be thrown into matters.

Chalking everything up to Serpentine left too many stones unturned, and they were stones she was personally very bothered by.

Because what did a war have to do with the malicious spirit hunting them down outside the safety of locked doors?

What was to say that it wasn't the true cause of all the death around them? What was its part in everything, and what even was it? Perhaps knowing those facts would help them defeat it for good. Maybe it would even lead to an escape. She'd only been here a day, and it was a day too long at this spirit's mercy. Skylor was still harboring a grudge for how quickly it had incapacitated her, an experienced fighter, and as far as she was concerned, the sooner they could get one up on it, the better. The odds were so stacked against them that delay and failure weren't options; she could read the anxiety and exhaustion in everyone else's faces. They had none else to thank for that but magic.

And that was the thing that bothered her most.

Where had the magic hanging over every inch of the mansion come from? She'd never felt it quite this oppressive and charged before, and she had experience. Their group knew so little about the mansion that everything—fatigue, powerlessness, the instability of time itself—just went back to magic until proven otherwise, and that was a chilling thought.

Dark magic was dangerous. Allow it to do what it wished, relinquish control over it for so much as a second, and it would rot away at your soul, eat at your sanity, and drag you kicking and screaming into the darkness whether you liked it or not. She'd seen it with Clouse, watched him become nastier, more depraved and brittle with each passing day. She'd felt it dance sinisterly on her fingertips and seep into her skin with the Anacondrai transformation spell.

They would all emerge far worse for wear if they stayed too long. Either that, or the spirit would get them first.

Shade's chances were looking pretty bleak.

Speaking of that guy, what in the world would he have wanted to come here for? The mansion was nothing but bad news, and the villagers had made that fact amply clear on their way. But she knew he was mulish enough to ignore what was in front of him and keep going until he got what he wanted … whatever that was.

If he had really been on his way here, what was he seeking, to venture so far away from the part of the world he knew? Had he even made it here, or had something happened to him on the way? Was he even still alive? Skylor would be immensely impressed if he had made it out alive.

What brought all the loose threads together? Why did their current situation exist—ouch.

Pulling a pained face, Skylor set down the notepad and rubbed her head, noticing just now how persistent the dull ache was. It was an unfriendly reminder that she couldn't think too hard about this.

For now, she put down the pencil and left the notepad alone. There was still something she couldn't put her finger on, something that was very much bothering her about the whole thing, but clearly, trying to puzzle it out squinting down at a pad of paper in a dimly lit room wasn't doing her any favors. She could always try again later; what she had written down for now was good.

Truth be told, she had started doing it because she didn't trust her stupid concussed head to properly remember everything, which she knew would drive her crazy. But she found now that she was liking taking notes as they learned new information: it gave her something to do so she didn't go up the walls with boredom. Even better, this way she could indulge the intuitive feeling she'd always carried that delighted in nothing more than keenly observing and piecing things together (part of why she'd made for such a great spy). It had gone off as she'd started to learn things about the mansion, starting with the magic, and well … it was rarely wrong. If it said there was something afoot, then there probably was.

And she was going to figure it out. Maybe her noggin was running a little slower, and with more pain than usual, but she had time. Screw the concussion. She and her notepad could figure out anything.

Heh. Skylor chuckled ruefully to herself. She felt a bit like a detective. Sure, an awfully sedentary one, but a detective! She even had glasses, setting aside that they were the wrong kind. Now, all she needed was a magnifying glass and a hat and she was set to be the perfect stay-in-bed gumshoe.

Now, until then, her bow could use a little more fixing …

Zane stood back as Lloyd pressed the switch that opened up to the room they were staying in. They'd gone up and down yet again, searching for any places they might have missed before and discovering a few new passageways. (They'd started to place little markers to indicate familiar passages, and Zane had begun mentally mapping out their layout.) Little in the way of new parts of the mansion, however, and only one new key with no matching door.

Eventually Jay had suggested that they go back and try again a little later. Lloyd, determined as he was not to stop until he'd actually found them, was unwilling initially, but seeing how their legs were starting to ache and how tired they already were from the day before, reluctantly agreed. They could go out again later.

Skylor started at the wall opening, but relaxed when she saw them and greeted them.

"Hey, sorry for startling you," Lloyd replied.

"Still nothing?"

Lloyd shook his head glumly. "Nothing but a few more rooms and new paths in the passage system."

Zane appraised him worriedly; as time went on and there was still no news from Kai or Karlof, Lloyd grew more and more dejected, and he could read on Jay's face that he was growing anxious, too. And as for him …

He sincerely hoped that the two of them were alright.

Then he noticed something.

"Is that Cole?"

"Ohhh wow," Jay said. "Is he still asleep?"

"Yep." Skylor said, sounding faintly amused. "He actually woke up soon after you left, but he was obviously tired. So I told him to get back to sleep."

"Wow."

Lloyd stretched out the tension in his muscles. "Do we … do we wake him?"

Zane had actually noticed Cole starting to shift in his sleep a few moments before. Now he turned and sat up slowly.

"Well," Jay smirked. "I guess there's our answer."

Cole blinked blearily for a moment, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Then he noticed them.

"Oh hey, you guys are back."

"You don't have anything less lackluster to offer us than 'oh hey'?"

Cole squinted at him. "Shut up, Jay." Then he got up and rummaged around in his backpack, pulling out a sandwich.

"Oh, and of course you beeline right for the food." Jay shook his head. "Typical Cole maneuver."

"Shut up, wouldja? I haven't eaten all day."

"You've been sleeping all day," Lloyd pointed out, amused.

"Exactly."

"He needs the nutritional benefit of breakfast eventually," Zane said. "Better now than skipping it and waiting for lunch, right?"

"Yes, thank you, Zane." Cole threw his hands up. "At least someone is on my side here."

"Heyy, no one said anything about sides …" Jay said. "Come on, I'm sorry, I was just ribbing you."

"I know." Cole and Jay held eye contact for a few seconds, and there was something about it that Zane couldn't place that made it feel significant. "Now hush up and lemme eat." After swallowing a bite, he eyed them, as if looking for something. Zane guessed what it was a second before he said it.

"I assume you didn't find anything?"

"Nope. Sorry." Jay sighed.

Lloyd's face fell again.

"Wow … It's been an entire day."

"Tell me about it," Lloyd moaned. "I know what you said yesterday, but it's starting to feel less and less likely to happen. There's been nothing. At this point, I'd take a bad sign over no sign."

"I … hope we don't find any bad signs," Jay muttered.

"The mansion is quite large," Zane said hopefully. "There's still a chance for us to run into them."

"Even though we've searched every speck of dust in the place?" Lloyd countered. Zane tried to think of a response, but came up empty. Lloyd huffed and shook his head.

"Sorry. Just … soon. Let's hope we find them soon. Because this situation is starting to look bad."

A little while later, Zane reached out and gently placed his hand on Cole's shoulder, and Cole turned slightly, expression inquisitive. Skylor, who had apparently been taking notes on what they'd learned so far, had asked for everyone else to fact-check what she had written down, but Zane supposed Jay and Lloyd could handle that on their own. As for him … he'd told Jay he would check up on Cole sometime. Already, he'd been putting it off; now seemed an appropriate time to make good on that promise.

"Hm? What's up, Zane?"

Zane gestured for them to move a little bit away from everyone else, and kept his tone hushed. "Did the extra sleep do you any good?"

"Uhh … yeah." Cole cocked an eyebrow curiously. "What's this about?"

"Well, I …" Might as well just say it upfront. Cole preferred it when people were honest with him, anyway. "I was just wondering how you were doing."

"Ohh. I'm fine!" Cole said. His tone was casual, almost too much so. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You seemed quite anxious on the first day, that's all …" And it was a little hard to believe that something like that just went away.

"Okay, maybe, but I'm fine now," Cole said. "Did Jay put you up to this or something?"

He was … certainly eager to end the conversation quickly. Honestly, it stung a little bit to have his concern brushed off. If they couldn't even trust each other with their fears, who were they going to trust?

"I ask out of my own concern and not simply to calm Jay, you know," he retorted, trying not to let his hurt show. "You say you are fine, but you're being so dismissive of my questions … "

"A-ack." Cole stared at him for a moment, before sighing. "Alright, fine. Sorry. … Am I really coming off that fragile?"

"It isn't a matter of fragility," Zane protested. "No one is happy with our current situation. I, for one, am perturbed by both the spirit and everything surrounding us here. As well as that, everyone else is also deeply affected by it, and it is beginning to become …"

"Stifling? Is it rubbing off on you, too, bud?"

"That's a good way to put it."

"Yeah, I. I know what you mean," Cole said sympathetically. "The atmosphere is definitely starting to get to everyone."

"Not to mention that Kai and Karlof have been missing for … a worrying length of time."

Cole winced. "That too. You think if we keep looking, we'll get lucky and stumble into them eventually?"

"I thought that was already the plan," Zane deadpanned. Cole snorted.

"Yeaah, that basically is the plan. Yeesh. But uh, you were nice enough to share how you're feeling on all of this, so I guess I'll …" Zane waited as Cole took a second, thinking through what he wanted to say before speaking up again.

"It's … you remember on the first day how we ran into the spirit and I kinda … lost my head?"

Zane nodded, recalling how tense Cole had been the entire rest of that day. If he paid close attention, he could still see the same guarded clench of his muscles and the weariness on his face—not nearly as relaxed as Cole was letting on.

"Well, it was because I was freaked out by its, you know, existence," Cole admitted, examining his boot uneasily. "But more than that … it spoke. And I could understand it."

Zane's eyes widened. "Spoke? … All I ever heard from it was assorted noises."

"I figured as much," Cole muttered. "That's why I didn't say anything. No one else ever did, and I look absolutely crazy if I'm the only one hearing creepy voices outta that thing."

"What, exactly, did it say?" Admittedly, he was curious. If it could speak, then did that mean it could communicate with them? Could they potentially figure out why it wanted to hurt them so badly?

"I … wow, I don't even know." Cole let out a strained laugh and buried his face in his hands. "There was more than one voice. Lots of them. And they were all saying different things, and, and it was so creepy . One second it'd be yelling about how we were intruders, and the next it'd be begging for help, or telling me to get out, or …" he shuddered, taking a heavy breath before continuing.

"The one thing it did keep saying, though, was to die. Just … kept screaming the word 'die', over and over again."

Zane blinked, a quiet horror settling into his circuitry. Cole looked back up at him, eyes haunted. "I don't know exactly what's wrong with this place, and why there's magic everywhere. But it wants us dead, Zane. It really does."

Instinctually, from the second they'd first encountered the spirit, they had all known that it did not mean well. But hearing it laid out so plainly sent a thrill of fear into him all the same.

It only lasted a couple seconds before something else planted itself within him: the seeds of gritty determination.

"If that is what it wants …" Zane started. Cole, eyes flickering back to him, waited for the end of the sentence.

"If that is what it wants, then we must do everything in our power to make sure it never gets it."

Cole wordlessly scrutinized his face for a bit. "... You make it sound so easy." Then he grinned wanly. "You know what? If it's that simple. If it wants us dead, then we do our best to make its job impossible."

"There you go."

"I'm trying to … face that," Cole continued, flinty determination seeping into his voice. "Make sure that next time we run into it, I'm ready."

Zane nodded encouragingly. "I believe in your strength, Cole. I hope you feel at least a little better now?"

"Definitely, yeah. Er … good talk?"

"Good talk." Zane extended a hand and Cole took it, giving it a brief shake before pulling him into a hug instead, just as comfortingly strong and warm as they always were.

"Okay, but you seem pretty stressed, too," Cole said lowly into Zane's ear. "If you ever need anything …"

"Understood." He would be fine, as long as everyone else was. But he didn't voice the thought.

"Great. Now," Cole said, making a face. "Let's go pull everyone else back. Because from what I'm hearing, I think they're done exchanging notes."

Zane listened for a moment and chuckled. Cole was probably right, if the current topic was any indication.

"... So then I unleashed all of the frogs on him, all at once," Jay was saying, very dramatically, to the backdrop of a cackling Lloyd and an incredulously snickering Skylor. "And the guy tried to complain, but man, who's gonna take a kid with frogs crawling all over him seriously, right? He didn't even think about looking in anyone else's direction for at least a month afterwards. And that, distinguished audience, is how I, as a humble nine-year-old, toppled the empire of a dastardly bully, starting with his prized model Lamborghini."

"What, all because he knocked over your toy helicopter?" Lloyd howled.

"Hey," Jay said, epitome of seriousness. "It wasn't from a kit, ya know. I built that thing entirely on my own. I was nine!"

Skylor shook her head and showered him with slow applause.

Zane felt an amused smile creep up his own face. "May I ask what you are discussing?"

"Oh, only about how ridiculously petty he was, even at nine," Lloyd snarked, not giving Jay a chance to answer.

"Hey, you were totally into it," Jay shot back. "And might I remind you what you were like at that age? Now, shut up and lemme talk about my story." Jay huffed.

"I'll pass," Cole said flatly, grabbing a packet of honey-roasted peanuts to snack on in lieu of breakfast. "Man, you guys got sidetracked." Jay pouted in his direction, but didn't push it.

"I know," Lloyd grinned. "I'm not even sure how we got here, honestly."

"Well, hey. You got a glimpse into the life of yours truly," Jay said. "I'd be honored if I were you."

Then he yawned.

"Why do you keep yawning? Are you that tired?"

"It's because I'm tired of explaining myself to you," Jay said, remarkably deadpan. Cole tried not to laugh at the look on Lloyd's face. He failed.

"Aaaalright, I see how it is," Lloyd said, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. "What now?"

"No more searching for now, definitely," Zane said.

"Yeaaah, no, please," Jay agreed, plopping back onto the ground unceremoniously. "My legs are ready to fall off."

"Let's look through the rest of the stuff Zane found." Everyone looked over at Skylor when she said it. "Whoever it belonged to, they knew Garmadon, and they had something to do with this place during the Serpentine War. And judging by what you saw in the passages …"

"They could be important," Lloyd finished. "I second that; I wanna know more about what Dad was doing in their letter."

"Yeah, tons of stuff that never got answered yesterday," Jay agreed. "Man, I wanna know who this guy was."

"I can read?" Zane offered. Lloyd looked over at him for a second, before nodding and pulling the leatherbound book out. Once he undid the thread holding it shut, Zane took it from him, opened to the first entry, and after skimming over the words, began to read.

(A/N): Sooo, I thought you abandoned this fic, I hear you say. You're not wrong, but I suddenly got hit with a wave of nostalgia for the pajama men ... and I found a couple chapters from years ago I wrote but never actually uploaded.

So here's my game plan: if you would all be willing to give me the chance, I would like to upload the rest of those chapters (be lenient with me, the writing is literally years old). I won't necessarily write more after that. Instead, my plan is to upload a ... sort of timeline or summary of sorts? For what the plot would have been, and also upload some of the notes in my google drive folder for this fic that might be interesting to read. Heck, if I can keep the motivation long enough, I might even write some disjointed snippets for fun (but I make no promises).

To anyone in the FFN fandom that still remembers this fic, or anyone reading for the first time, thanks for reading and I hope that sounds good!