Pannen, Elijah, Ishmael, and Leah continued their journey on foot. No longer were they venturing through places with thick foliage or mystery dungeons, they were walking across open fields. Pannen's head frequently switched between looking around the field and looking down at the ground in sadness. She remained more quiet than she was on most days.

Without much excitement around them and not much to read, Elijah was forced to entertain himself with his memory alone. He dug through the corners of his mind, until a thought came that he vocalized.

"We never did finish that jigsaw puzzle, did we?" Elijah asked Pannen. "That one we were making with Aika and Mill before Aika left."

The older minccino slightly raised her head. "Yeah, I don't think we ever did."

"I don't think we got halfway done with the puzzle. Aika excused herself rather early on, and the rest of us worked on it for a bit before calling it a night as well," Pannen said. "Yeah, you're right."

"I wonder if Mill has finished it since we've left," Elijah said.

"I hope he hasn't. I'd still like it if we could finish that with Aika."

"I suppose… although I do wonder what Mill has been up to this whole time. I suppose he went right back to living alone since we've left," Elijah said.

"We'll ask him once we get back with Aika. Things will be fine," Pannen said.

Ishmael shrugged. "I don't really like puzzles, they're super boring," he said. "No action."

"Not everything needs to be action packed. Sometimes it's nice to do something calming," Elijah said.

"No, I like having action all the time," Ishmael said. "You should really come by our house more often, we do tons of super fun stuff. Like one day we were playing a game of tag where we were going on and off of the roof! And another day we were seeing how far each of us could throw a rock!"

Leah chuckled to herself. "Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?" she asked the mienfoo.

Ishmael's head pulled back. "What do you mean?" he asked, his face showing visible confusion.

"I've heard all the stories from my dad about the shenanigans your parents would get up to. They did a lot of weird competitions during my dad's tenure," the espurr said. "Quite the personalities, they were."

"My parents were some of the best in the whole guild!" Ishmael said.

"Well you do have a point there, so perhaps their antics paid off after all," Leah said. "Still not as good as my father was, though."

"Our parents were some of the best too!" Pannen excitedly said.

"Not really. I mean Locke was certainly good, but Tamin was just an okay explorer," Leah said. "I just don't think you should be using the plural for that."

That statement irked Pannen. "But my parents fought the leader of House Breach directly! She beat him along with my dad," she argued. "She was epic too."

"My parents went toe-to-toe with Armin!" Ishmael said.

"Both of your parents got their butts kicked by him. But when my dad fought him, he kept going until Armin called for a retreat!" Leah said.

"Only because my parents weakened him first! No way your dad could take on Armin without their help!" Ishmael said.

"Only because he wasn't in his prime. He hasn't done a mission for years before that fight happened, and he still held his ground~" Leah bragged. She then turned to Pannen again. "Yeah, hate to tell you but it really seems like your parents were the weakest of the lot here. Well, that's not true, I wouldn't say I 'hate' to tell you that."

"Hang on, you've only been talking about your dad this whole time, what about your mother, huh?" Pannen asked Leah. "You said my mom was only 'okay', but what did yours do?"

"Well…" Leah didn't have a response readied for that.

"Yeah, what did she do, Leah?" Elijah asked.

"My mom… was a gifted psychic who helped the guild greatly. She wasn't as good as Rustin was, but still quite exceptional."

"Our dad is a gifted electric type, our mom was a gifted normal type. Her being psychic doen't inherently make her better if she's not doing anything with it," Pannen argued. "Also, the guild's elite four was Locke, Dewott, Mienshao, and Hunter. Rustin isn't even on that list, and you're telling me your mom isn't even as good as Rustin?"

"...Fine. Exploration wasn't my mother's greatest suit," Leah conceded. "But my dad more than makes up for that with his power."

"All I'm hearing is that I've won because both my parents were strong and y'all only got one strong parent," Ishmael said.

"Hey!" Pannen said.

"Dang, now I want to find Aika all that more, because I'm really interested to hear how she'd contribute to this conversation," Leah said.

"Let's drop this, please," Elijah said. "This arguing is only going to make us angry at each other, it's pointless."

Leah looked disappointed. "Alright, alright," the espurr said.

"Yeah, you're right," Pannen said.

"Well what should we talk about then?" Ishmael said. "Any games we can play?"

"Hmm…" Pannen thought.

"So… what pokemon is the opposite of a furret?" Ishmael said.

"Wouldn't that be gengar?" Pannen said.

"How so?" Ishmael asked.

"Ghost type is the opposite of normal type. Furret are long and thin with big tails, gengar are very round with little tails," Pannen elaborated.

"Ah, that makes sense," Ishmael said.

"But gengar do still have a tail, it's just small," Elijah said. "It would have to be ghastly. Since that doesn't have any limbs at all, and it moves by levitating instead of walking. That's more of an opposite to furret to be sure."

"That's a good point," Pannen said.

"But my issue with that is I feel that you could say 'ghastly have no limbs' to argue that it's the 'opposite' of like a hundred different pokemon," Leah said.

"Well furret is a normal type specifically, which is like the opposite to a ghost type. I feel that something else would be the opposite to other levitating pokemon like magnemite," Elijah argued.

"I'm not sure I'd really call ghost type a clean opposite to normal type," Leah said. "We've run into that issue a few times now. There are a few obvious 'opposite' types like fighting and psychic, dark and fairy, and flying and ground. But beyond that all the others seem like stretches. Water, grass, and fire are all in a trinity."

"Well I'm working at what I got here. Arceus himself didn't intend for species to have 'opposites', we've got to be making stretches here."

"I like Eli's answer," Ishmael said.

"I think it's smart," Pannen decided. "Let's just call it right."

"Fair enough, I guess," Leah shrugged.

"Okay, it would be my turn again now," Pannen said. "So… what pokemon is the opposite of… Shaymin?"

"Ugh, we've already gone through eleven different species now. Is there really nothing else we can do?" Leah complained.

"If you've got another idea, we're all open for it," Pannen said.

"...I don't. Let's just keep doing this," she conceded.

"Wait, what's that over there?" Elijah said as he lifted his head to point.

They stopped to look in the direction that he was pointing in.

Not far from them was a beige house with an unpainted wood roof. Pieces of a fence stood around it, many of the sections collapsed and some of the boards had fallen loose on the sections which remained. Large, old trees towered around it.

"That looks interesting. let's get a closer look, come on," Pannen stepped towards the house as she made a gesture for the rest of them to follow.

The four waded through the tall grass and weeds to approach the house. There was a thin gravel pathway in front of the building, but the plants around were well in the process of reclaiming the area, so the clearing was thin. They gathered close together in places where the plants didn't rub against their fur, and they looked at the house.

Broken windows, decayed wood, and flaking paint: the house was beyond derelict with weeds so high it was impossible to tell where the house's yard originally ended. If the house used to have any signs or numbers on it, they had long since fallen off.

"The architecture style is imported, but no one has lived there for at least a decade," Leah said. "I'd say this is well on the way to becoming an archeology site."

"Even my grandparents don't live in a place this old. This is a dump," Ishmael said.

"Interesting," Pannen said. "Let's take a peek inside. It's a ways away until the next town, so this could be a safe place to spend the night. Not like we'll be bothering anyone."

"Wait, are we allowed to do this?" Elijah asked.

"It's all okay, Eli," Pannen said. "We're heroes, having to go into a lot of different places is just part of the job."

"We're not disturbing anyone, so going inside should be fine," Leah said. "I am interested in what happened to whoever used to live here. Did they just move somewhere else? Did they die?"

"I don't want to be walking in on a corpse," Elijah said.

"Even if they died, they could've died somewhere else."

"It's okay, Eli. Let's go," Pannen commanded.

She walked up to the door as Elijah, Leah, and Ishmael followed. She had to get onto her tippy toes to reach for the doorknob, but the old mechanics did open. She slowly pushed the door open, the wood creaking as she did. Even the air inside felt antique to breath, they could just feel it was something that no pokemon had set foot in for years. They stepped around a molded rug and looked around, their feet tapping against the wood floor.

The areas around the broken windows were messy with dirt and twigs blown inside. But elsewhere, the house was preserved in time. The antiques of times passed remained on the shelves and atop countertops. It was completely static in how long they had remained unaltered, it felt like walking around a painting, the dusty air enhanced that feeling.

"Not sure what I expected inside of here, but here it is," Pannen said. "There's absolutely nothing alive in here."

"Can we start exploring this house then?" Ishmael asked.

"It's not that large so I doubt there's much to explore," Pannen said. "But I don't see anything wrong with that, I doubt any of us are going to get lost."

"I don't want to be going into any dark basements," Elijah said.

"Oh stow your fear Eli," Leah said in a condescending manner. "If there was some hillbilly living out in here, we'd see some disturbance in the objects here, which we don't. What, do you think some pokemon has been waiting perfectly still for decades for some random pokemon to walk in so they could ambush them?"

"Well there are some really patient pokemon. But we could take 'em!" Ishmael said.

"Ishmael, they'd starve to death if they just waited in place for years," the espurr said.

"Oh yeah," Ishmael said.

"That doesn't really calm my nerves too much, actually," Elijah said.

"It's okay, Eli," Pannen said. "Come on, let's check this place out. It'll be a nice change of pace.

Pannen rummaged around the house's kitchen. There wasn't a single electronic device in the whole place, no way for anything to be kept cool. An antique furnace sat in the room with a fireplace with pipes leading to the outside. The minccino looked through all the cupboards of the room- starting with the ones on the ground before climbing onto the countertops to start reaching for the higher up cupboards.

Cupboard after cupboard was empty and bone dry. But eventually, she opened one of the doors to find four tin cans laid in it. She grabbed one to inspect it, but the label was too faded for her to make out what she said it was (even when she squinted).

"Hey Pannen," Ishmael said from behind Pannen.

She turned around to face the mienfoo, who stood on the room's edge. "Hey there," she said.

"Watcha doing?" he asked.

"I'm looking to see if there's any food in here we can eat. If we can save the food in our bags for later, then we should," she said.

"Found anything yet?"

"Maybe? I don't know what this is," Pannen looked back at the tin can she was holding. "And I just realized I don't have anything to open this up. Let me know if you find a can opener in here. And we also should figure out this old oven so we can cook it."

"Okay," Ishmael said.

The mienfoo began opening drawers up while standing on his tippy-toes, Pannen continued looking through cabinets as she stood on the countertop.

"There's something I wanted to ask about," Ishmael said.

"What is it?"

"What did Leah mean when she said this place had 'imported architecture'?"

"I think she meant that the architecture style originated from another continent," Pannen answered.

"Oh, I see."

"This is a rather odd building. It's so emptied out that I think whoever used to live here moved out, and I'm not sure I've seen any other houses like it," Pannen thought out loud, taking another look at all the objects inside. "What do you think it would be like to grow up in this house?"

"Probably really itchy, the grass around it is really high," Ishmael answered.

"I mean if this house was properly maintained while you were living in it," she clarified. "So the lawn it kept under control, the windows weren't broken, the place was cleaned and stocked, all that stuff."

"Oh. Well, it could be fun. There are a lot of places to explore around here. And I could probably play music as much as I want!"

"You really are quite adventurous," Pannen said.

"That's why I'm here!" he said.

"Thanks for the help."

The two pokemon continued looking around the old kitchen, checking out all the cupboards and drawers.

Elijah looked around a bedroom that was up a staircase. The thought of a dark basement still unnerved him, so he had gone to the highest room in the house.

He could tell it was a master bedroom, as there was still a bed as large as what his father slept in. The room still had a fair few pieces of furniture left for him to check out. From what he could tell, it was the place left most in-tact.

Elijah did even know what he was looking for himself, he poked around out of pure curiosity. He first checked the nightstand beside the bed, but that held only an old smoking pipe and dust of substances he did not recognize. He left the nightstand behind and turned his attention to a sturdy table in the room.

After climbing up one of its legs, he found the table to have tons of wood pieces on it. But they didn't seem to be random debris from a destroyed object, the wood pieces had been carved into objects and even trinkets with tiny wood pieces leftover. Most of the wooden sculptures seemed only half-completed. Beside all of them were a few iron tools with sharpened ends. He picked the tools up to look closer, they seemed well-worn from frequent use.

"What are you doing up here?" Leah asked.

Suddenly hearing a voice behind him made Elijah inadvertently flinch. He set the tool down and looked towards Leah. "Just looking around," he said.

"Fair enough, we haven't done much else this past week," Leah said. "What did you find there?"

"Some carved wood and some tools," Elijah answered.

"Ah, some whittling tools," Leah said.

"What's 'whittling'?"

The espurr seemed to begin to roll her eyes, but then stopped halfway through. "That's what it's called to carve wood like that. It's a form of art."

"Well okay then," Elijah looked back at the wood for a little longer. He picked up one of the uncarved wood pieces; he felt that the wood was softer than the ones used for making buildings or tools. He quickly put it into his backpack and hopped down from the table.

"Hmm. I think this is the first time you and I are alone together. Leah and Ishmael are somewhere else on the first floor," Leah said.

"Huh… I think you're right."

"Well since we have the opportunity, there is something I was curious about."

"What is it?"

"What is it that you want to be?"

"What do you mean?"

"Pannen and Aika both clearly want to be like their fathers, Ishmael seems to want to be some musicien adventurer, and I'm going to be the next guildmaster for the guild. But what are your dreams? I'm having a harder time reading you."

"Well…" Elijah himself didn't have an answer to that question. He was still quite young and hadn't figured out his full life yet. He'd just been going forward in life without any big end goal in mind. "...Being like my big sister, I suppose."

"Really now?"

"Yeah, she is pretty brave," Elijah said.

"You don't sound all that sure."

"Well…"

Leah waited a moment for Elijah to finish that sentence, but he didn't. She simply shrugged. "Well alright then."

"Just keep turning that while I hold this can still…" Pannen said as Ishmael used a can opener. Both the can and the tool were made for pokemon larger than them, so they worked together to operate it.

After enough rotations, the top of the tin can became fully disconnected from the can. They lifted the lid off to see the food inside. It was some stale fruit- either peaches or pears. The time rendered them stale and their colors muted, so it was difficult to precisely ascertain what was inside. There were no signs of mold within or unsightly clots.

"Is this safe to eat this?" Ishmael asked.

"The can was properly sealed, so no mold should've been able to get in. I think this should be good?" Pannen said. "I'm glad that it seems like fruit. It would've been tricky to cook this here."

"It doesn't look that good," Ishmael said.

Pannen reached into it and pulled out a slice from the can and lifted it up. It was fragile to hold, the texture didn't make it much easier to figure out precisely what it was. She put it in her mouth and let the substance make contact with her taste buds. It was simultaneously sour and sickly sweet, neither of those flavors working together. She grimaced as she covered her mouth, it felt like a chill ran down her body.

"Are you okay?" Ishmael asked.

"Yeah, just… maybe let's not eat this," Pannen said. She put the lip back onto the tin can, even though that didn't re-seal it.

"Yeah."

Pannen retrieved the canteen from her backpack and took a swig from it, letting the water flush out the terrible flavor from her mouth. She let out a sigh, both in relief and in annoyance. "Want to try the other cans out, or should we just call it quits?"

Ishamel shrugged. "I think that's up to you."

"Let's stop here. And we should get this dumped outside so it doesn't make a festering smell for whoever shows up to this house next."

After saying that, Pannen took another look around the room. Once they stopped moving and searching around, the house had become still again, like a photograph in time that retained the house's details in time. Another thought crossed her mind; this one made her heart sink.

"This house shows no signs of Aika having been in it. Was she even going this way at all?" Pannen asked.

"Uh, maybe she just didn't see it?" Ishmael said.

The minccino looked to the ground "I really hope we're still following her and we haven't been side-lined. We need to find her."

"Hey," Ishmael placed a paw on Pannen's shoulder, "we'll get your sister found, I promise that. This adventure is for a purpose"

Pannen gave a soft smile. "Thank you," she said.

Elijah continued to be on the table with the whittling tools. He tested them out on the wood that was left there, feeling out how they worked by trying out different motions with them. He gradually carved away the wood, putting a shape to them.

Leah examined the other sections of the bedroom. She pulled a drawer open, and within found a well-bound book. She pulled it out, and found the book had a lock strap holding it closed. Leah immediately recognized the fact that it was a journal, so she pulled it out. She then felt around the same drawer with her paw, and she felt a tiny key within. Leah pulled the key out, put it into the lock, and was able to unlock it. She excitedly opened the book, but her excitement was quickly met with disappointment when she found it was empty.

"What do you have there?" Elijah asked.

"It's a journal, but it looks like it's completely empty," Leah flipped between the pages to make sure, finding that each was just as blank as the last.

"You found a journal and opened it up without hesitation?" Elijah said.

"Yeah?"

"Don't you think that's an invasion of privacy? What if something was in it," Elijah hopped off the table to approach the espurr.

"Whoever was here last might not even be alive anymore," Leah said. "If it was valuable to them, they would've taken this journal with them when they left. Even if they were alive, I doubt they would ever learn I found it."

"I still think it's not right. Nothing bad would've happened if you just left that journal where it was."

"Well it ended up being blank, so no harm was done by me taking it. So ha."

Elijah didn't say anything more, he felt like there wasn't any point to continue arguing with her. Leah felt satisfied, and she slipped the book and its respective key into her backpack.

Elijah turned around again, and Leah looked at what else was available in the room. Her eye was caught by a closet that was on the room's edge, she could tell it hadn't been opened in a long time. The espurr approached it, but Elijah stood back. Even a closet felt just a little too scary to him.

Leah opened the door just a bit to look inside, which didn't give Elijah a clear view into it. The espurr was surprised by just how much still remained in the closet.

"There's not any clothing in here, which makes sense as pokemon wearing those was pretty rare back then," she said as she looked around. "There's almost a full shelf of books in here, I'd love to take one or two of them with me but they look pretty heavy. Oh, there's an old chess set in here that looks in-tact, that's interesting. Hang on there's also something on the top shelf here- holy crap!"

"What is it?" Elijah asked.

"You have got to come over here," Leah said, her voice sounding excited.

"What did you find?"

"Just come over here," Leah repeated.

Not seeing much of an alternative option, Elijah quickly put the wood and tools he was using before cautiously stepping forward to the espurr. She turned to him while smiling ear-to-ear and presented two objects she'd found: a wooden tablet and a triangular puck with a circular hole in the center. The tablet contained the numbers 0-10, the full alphabet, and the words "hello" and "goodbye" written in the bottom corners along with other ornate details in the wood.

"Wait, is this-"

"There is straight up a ouija board here. And look at how old this wood is! This is past vintage, this could have cost a lot to get designed," she said eagerly.

"Isn't this used to talk to the dead?"

"Oh yeah, that's what people think it does," Leah said. She held the tablet up to her chest and looked up. "So whoever once lived here didn't want to take it with him when he moved out, but at the same time, there was a reason why he didn't just throw it in the trash… this is spectacular. What kind of person do you think used to live here?"

"Uh, a superstitious person?"

"Exactly. I don't think this is just a toy to waste an hour with given how well-designed this is. That's what I find so is as authentic as it gets," she said. "Well, designed with an intent and by a true believer, not that it would actually work. That's what I mean by 'authentic'."

"Just put it back. We don't need it with us."

"In a bit. I have got to mess with Ishmael first with this, he'll totally believe this is legitimate. I'll use some telekinesis to move the planchette around."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Come on, it'll be fun."

"I'm not sure-"

"We've been traveling around for days on end with nothing to do. What, are you gonna snitch on me and ruin this joke now that we finally have some form of entertainment?"

"Well… no."

"Right. Now come on and play along. You can pretend like you haven't seen this board yet and be surprised as well."

Leah left the master bedroom, taking the board and the puck with her. Elijah followed along and they descended the stairs together.

"Ishmael! Pannen!" Leah began calling out only a second after her foot touched the ground level.

"What is it?" Pannen's voice was heard responding.

"Something I want to show you guys!"

The four reunited in the entry room. Leah held the board behind her back. Elijah got the gnawing feeling that this wasn't a good thing to do, but he kept silent.

"There's something I found that I want to do with all of you," Leah said.

"What, did you find a board game or something?" Pannen asked.

"Not quite," she turned around the board to show it to them. "I found this in the master bedroom. I've just got to try it out with you guys to see if this actually works."

"Isn't that used for speaking with the dead?" Pannen asked.

"Exactly."

"That doesn't sound like something to play with."

"Hey now, just think of how boring it would be to be a ghost with nothing to do. If there is some spirit here, they'd be thankful that we're reaching out to finally talk to them," Leah bluffed. "If anything, finding this board and ignoring it would be what brings us bad luck."

"I'm still not so sure." Pannen said.

"What's the matter, suddenly not feeling adventurous?" Leah teased.

"Well…" Pannen didn't want to back down from this challenge. "Okay, you can show how it's done."

"Let's try it out!" Ishmael said.

"Great! Let's go to the living room here and put this on the floor. We'll all gather around it."

Elijah breathed in and breathed out. He still had a bad feeling about it.

They all went to the empty living room and Leah placed the board on the floor. They all gathered on different sides of it.

"Okay, so how this works is that everyone places their paw on the planchette, and then we drag it over to the 'Hello' in the corner. Then we can start asking questions, we'll feel the planchette start being pulled to different letters to give us answers," Leah explained.

Each of them did as she instructed, some eagerly and some reluctantly. Together, they put the puck over the 'Hello' in the corner and kept their paws on it.

"Wait, do we also use the board to ask the questions, or do we just speak the questions out loud and let the spirits move it?" Pannen asked.

"That's a good question… I'm not entirely sure myself," Leah admitted. "I've heard about them before and seen them in art, but this is my first time actually using one. I'm not sure what the exact process for that is."

"Well I'd assume that spirits would be capable of hear-"

Just then, they felt the planchette being pulled as their paws rested upon them. They became silent as it moved to the letters to begin spelling. "E", "I", "T", "H", "E", "R" it spelled before it became still again. Leah looked around at the expressions of the three others, the espurr's expression was focused and annoyed.

"Well that's our first answer," Pannen said.

"Okay. So what should we ask it now? Any ideas?" Leah said.

"Hey now, let's not call any spirits an 'it', we should call them 'them'. 'It' is just rude," Pannen scolded Leah.

"Fine, that's fair," Leah said.

"Man, this is just so cool," Ishmael said.

"Yeah. This is actually really surreal," Pannen said.

They began feeling a tug on the planchette again, as it began moving. "I", "T", "S", "O", "K", "A", "Y" it spelled out. Elijah looked at Leah, her ears remained perfectly folded against her head and her expression had further tightened in annoyance.

"Okay you're not supposed to pull it around when it comes time to get an answer. Just wait until you feel a tug on it and then don't resist it," Leah said to them.

"That's what I have been doing," Ishmael said.

"I haven't been pulling it at all," Elijah said.

"Yeah, we've been doing what you told us to," Pannen said.

"Well I'm not pulling it, so someone clearly is," Leah said.

They felt another tug on the planchette, it began moving again. "I", "A", "M".

They all looked at the puck again, silent. They glanced at each other's expressions, trying to figure out if anyone was pulling any stunts.

"I'm getting scared," Elijah admitted.

"Is this not supposed to happen?" Ishmael asked.

"I… okay I was planning on pulling a joke, but I haven't been moving it," Leah admitted.

"I think we should stop," Elijah said.

"Okay everyone, just back away and go away from the board," Pannen said.

Each of them sat up and stepped backwards, but they kept their eyes on the board. For one moment, everything was still. Then-without anything touching it- the planchette started sliding again. "D", "O", "N", "O", "T", "B", "E", "A", "F", "R", "A", "I", "D" was spelled out.

"That is NOT me doing that!" Leah said, taking another step backwards.

"Wh-what is moving that?" Ishmael asked

"I don't know!" Leah said.

"I-I think we should leave this place," Elijah said.

"Okay everyone calm down!" Pannen raised her voice with an authoritative tone. "The standard questions are 'who', 'what', 'when', 'where', 'why', and 'how'. Let's just go through all those questions in that order, no one needs to freak out."

Pannen was the first to step forward again. She came to the board, sat down, and placed her left paw back on the planchette. "Come everyone," she said.

With great reluctance, Ishmael came back to the ouija board and placed his paw down as well. Then Leah came back, and then Elijah. Before doing anything else, Pannen took a deep breath in and then breathed out to ease her nerves. The house that had previously been just 'interesting' and the board that had just been 'funny', it had all turned into a tense atmosphere. Something was with them.

"To whoever is here with us: tell us, who are you?" Pannen spoke her worlds carefully.

After three more nervous seconds, they could feel the planchette resume motion. "A", "L", "I", "N", "G", "E", "R", "I", "N", "G", "S", "P", "I", "R", "I", "T".

Pannen took another moment to ease her nerves. "A spirit of what?" she asked.

"A", "D", "E", "A", "D", "B", "U", "I", "Z", "E", "L".

"If that's true, then when did you die?" Pannen asked.

There was a longer delay this time. It was still only a few seconds, but the tension made it the longest seconds of their lives. Before they could move or say anything else, it began again. "S", "A", "M", "E", "D", "A", "Y", "A", "S", "A", "R", "M", "I", "N".

The next question in the order was "where", but Pannen didn't see a need in asking that. The spirit was clearly with them, in that very room. So she moved onto the next one. "Why are you here?" she asked.

"T", "O", "P", "R", "O", "T", "E", "C", "T", "Y", "O", "U".

There was only one question left. "How?" Pannen spoke that singular word.

"W", "I", "T", "H", "W", "A", "T", "E", "R" it finally spelled out.

The four continued looking down on the board, letting the reality settle in their minds. They were not alone. Ever since they began the journey, they had not been alone.

As they all rested, they saw the planchette moving again- responding to no question. "G", "O", "T", "O", "H", "A", "R", "R", "E", "N", "B", "U", "R", "G".

They waited for a second to see if it was going to still move. Afterwards, Pannen reached into her backpack and pulled out the map of the area. She remembered where they were and checked out what was closeby.

"There is a town called 'Harrenburg' that's not far from here, and it's not too out of the way either," she said. "...I think we should do what they're saying."

Leah moved the puck to the "Goodbye" on the ouija board, and then took the entire board to put into her backpack.

End of chapter 13