The room is dank, no one has obviously been in here for a while. The dust on the ground shows no evidence of footsteps, and rather than disturb it, he steps off to the sides and into the shadows.

The building is one big room, laid out like a church, row upon row of long wooden pews, but unlike a church, there are no Godly statues, there are no religious symbols. He works his way into the corner and looks over the room.

"It's an art gallery?" he questions himself.

The side walls are lined with portrait paintings, large artworks with gold scalloped edges. Each of the paintings is a man, is various posses. A hunter, a farmer, a military officer in a uniform not recognizable, even a fisherman. They are all in like possess, full length, standing upright, one leg raised and resting on something.

He walks down the side of the room and looks up at first painting as it towers over him. A small bronze plaque at the bottom appears to be inscribed. Pioneer raises his hand over the plague and wipes the dirt clean. The inscription is almost unreadable, but there is an unmistakeable number at the bottom.

A date.

His eyes raise and examines the painting again, the hunter. The deceased hunter. He steps back a little and is startled with the new view of the painting. His breathe shortens and his eyes widen as he takes in the scene. His head darts about at the other paintings as he quickly scans them all.

He is not sure, not yet, at what he has seen.

(Since Jim is away from keyboard, I'll post his Official Discovery for him).

Jim found a quiet place in the East Turret to examine the journal he found in the chapel. Most of the pages were written in a language he did not recognize, but the last page had this:

... and now the Germans have come, like the Teutonic knights, and the Vikings before them. The island will work its dark magic on them, and there will be blood and death. I must retreat to the only sanctuary there is on this island and wait it out.

.

All the paintings had dates on them, a start and end date, almost like they were epitaphs. Graves. Memorials.

He walked around the room slowly, every painting had the hairy creature underfoot of all the men and every painting had the Castle in the background. At the far end of the hall an altar like table lay, without the usual ceremonial clothes and objects. A large altar, made of marble, smooth when you ran your hand over it, cold to touch. Pioneer looked back at the front door. All the pews were angled pointing towards the front in a V formation.

As if this was the place to gather and watch.

Pioneer turned and looked at the largest painting hung behind the table in a recessed nook of the far end of the Widow's Den. It was twice the size of the others, but had the same large hairy creature dead in the picture and the castle int he background. But this picture was slightly different to the others.

The man in the picture was a lighthouse keeper, and he had a rope around the creatures throat. There was no end date on the plaque at the bottom of his picture.

Vote to Lynch Rear.

Mookie trudged forward with heavy steps and tripped over an exposed root for what felt like the 100th time that day. The past 3 hours have been spent in an arboreal hell. The path he had started on quickly became lost in underbrush. He found the path again after a time, then lost it.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Mookie heard the pounding of ocean surf. He headed towards it and the forest gave way to a sandy beach. (Official Discovery) He looked back...he had cleared the minefield! Beyond it, the castle loomed in the distance.

"Damnable mission. Damnable Jerries. Damnable monsters. And the worst of all, that loudmouth Rear....coming on the tannoy and trying to corner us all together. I bet he's the one behind this. Someone should lynch that Hauptmann Rear"

Mookie walked across the sand towards a lighthouse that looked to have been abandoned for years. He needed to reach the top of it to set up some sort of signal fire, a flare, a light...something to attract the notice of a passing ship that could render aid and get him off the island. Mookie stepped inside the lighthouse. The smell of moss, mildew and neglect filled his nose.

"Let's see what secrets you hold, old chum." Mookie began to search the dilapidated rooms....

The survivors at the castle were tired, frightened and desperate. They knew there was little time left, and if they wanted to come out of this alive, they would need to kill another werewolf soon.

They broke into Rear's chambers, and marched him out to the execution post.

"You took command, and then you disappeared," AVGWarhawk. "That forfeiture of leadership will cost you your life, Hauptmann Rear."

"Fire!"

The German officer died immediately.







.

*As night falls, starts to look a little bit more unsure*

"Are we certain we're safe here?"

Jimbuna read the short piece of writing he could understand over and over again until the realisation hit him like a runaway train 'Of course!!....That had to be the key to all this mayhem'!!

"As safe as being in mamma's arms. Those that went to the castle..not a smart move. That castle is the killing grounds. Rear has bought the farm. Now we stand guard for the night."

"I wondered when one of you would find you're way up here."

*Startled, Mookie barely kept himself from stumbling backwards off the ledge. As he grabbed the sides of the little alcove for support he looked in shock at the figure who he could have sworn was not there a minute ago.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ousekeeper.jpg

"How did I miss a man sitting in this small space" he thought, wondering whether he could leap to another of the little nooks before the old man could react.

"Oh, don't be startled", the old man said gently, "I won't harm you. In fact you're quite safe for the moment. No, nothing to fear from old Will Tiresias."

Mookie's nerves were just starting to settle when a piercing cry from the window behind the old man made him nearly jump out of his skin again. The old man stepped aside (as far as one could step aside in that tiny space) to reveal the source of the scream - a seagull had landed in the stone window.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...Steve/Gull.jpg

"Oh!" Will Tiresias smiled again. "That's just Ernst. We keep each other company. He enjoys my conversation, which is good because he's the only company I've had in awhile. In return he shares the fish he catches with me. Aside from that I have a good supply of salt tack, and with all the rain and fog I never have to worry about water.

"But you didn't climb all the way up here to listen to an old man talk about his home life. Having a little trouble, are we? Things that go bump in the night? I was here when the Germans came, you know. Living in the castle, like my fa...oh, I'm sorry, I'm rambling again. I watched them move in, and watched that one fellow's experiments. Didn't do him much good, did they?

"He wasn't the cause of this, you know. Not directly, anyway. It's the Island itself. Something about the island that's not quite...right, if you know what I mean. Brings out the best in some men, and the worst in some. And, apparently, the beast in some as well. *chuckles quietly*

"You can fight this, you know. Ernst helped me hide some things, didn't you Ernst?" To Mookie's shock, and a little delight, the seagull cried out again as if in response to Tiresias' question. "Oh yes, we've been watching. I watched as the Germans made their little garden in the back yard. Put all their boom-toys in the ground. But we saw them, and we kept track. Even made a little map. Hid it somewhere around here, in the room across the way, I think. Or maybe it was under the lamp. No, in that next little nook of a room, under the stone chair. Has every single mine on it, it does. Has the paths where there aren't any, too.

"I also know about a little...something...that can keep the beasties away. Ernst showed it to me. Or was it that old Mother Superior who used to run the nunnery? Strange one, she was. Said she knew my family even before my grandfather...oh! Sorry, my mind was wandering again. Ernst helped me hide the thing. It's in the Widow's Den. Funny name, that. I've always wondered where it came from. My father wouldn't tell me, and my mother...well, that's a story for another day.

"What was I telling you again? Oh yes, the Talisman. Keeps the dark things at bay. Why haven't I gone back for it? Well, haven't needed it, have I? They can't climb up here you see. Of course there's no food up here except what little I have, so you could starve to death if you tried to stay here, all of you. You could try to take mine, but Ernst wouldn't like that, would you Ernst?" Ernst didn't say anything this time, but Will Tiresias' eyes seemed to glow a little at that moment.

"What? Did you say something? Oh, but you were going to. I can tell, you know. The Talisman, wasn't it? Got your curiosity going, didn't we? Alright, if my company bores you that much, I guess I can let you go. We don't mind, do we Ernst? But you'll have to go back to the castle, yes you will. Look under the thirteenth stone. Oh! That doesn't help much, does it. Count from the hollowed-out stone, the drinking scupper. You'll find it.

"Best of luck to you. Ernst likes you, you know."

He retracted out of the hole and began to search, looking for a candle or anything that might shed some light. Breaking the armrest of a pew, he wrapped his shirt around the end and eventually poured distilled spirits from an unlit red urn. The shirt burned slowly, as he swept across the painting of the lighthouse keeper again. In the corner, in the warm light, a name jumped out at him.

Will Tiresais.

Mookie stood dumbfounded. Was he hallucinating? Dreaming? Was he right and truly mad? Nothing had made much sense since they landed on this godforsaken place, so he decided to take Will at face value.

"Th...Thank you," stammered Mookie. "That's a great help." Mookie found the minefield map under the stone chair, just where Will said it would be. Glancing at the horizon, Mookie saw the quickly-setting sun.

"Well this should be a refreshing bit of a run." Mookie clambered down the lighthouse ruins and started a sprint back to the Widow's Den, racing against the impending darkness.