Wednesday morning, Abe woke up with no sign or symptoms of having been sick the day before. Not even the tiniest sniffle. And, bonus, he'd gone to bed at a decent time so he'd left just enough schoolwork that he wouldn't be bored during the hour between his two morning classes that day. Everything was looking up for him.

“What do you mean class was canceled?” Abe stared at the notification on the door.

“Maybe the professor is sick. There seems to be something going around already. I mean, you yourself were practically dead on your feet and out of it yesterday. And at least two of the woodsmen team have been so sick no one's seen them around since Monday evening.” Why today? He was feeling so energized and motivated right now and it was going to go to waste at this rate.

“But… but I only left enough work for between classes. What am I supposed to do with the extra time now?” The class itself was a little over an hour long and he’d accounted for another hour or so towards any homework assigned for the class. That was two hours he hadn’t planned to not have work for.

“Have some fun, maybe?” Artemis’ smile is returned with a frown.

“My work is fun to me.”

“Well, now you have time to do more of it.” Abe was starting to get frustrated at this point. How was she not seeing the problem?

“But I only have a limited amount to do and now way too much time to do it.”

The athlete looked amused. “For being so smart, you're overlooking something really obvious… If you don't have enough to work on, you are perfectly capable of creating more. You can't tell me you've finished getting ahead every way possible in all of your classes. Or are you going to claim you don't do that sort of thing?”

He couldn't deny it. “...No, I suppose not.”

“Cool. Well, since English is the canceled class, what do you want to do the research paper on?” Maybe, despite the evidence he’d already witnessed so far, Artemis was actually the musclehead he’d originally assumed. He’d only been on good terms with her for a few days after all and that wasn’t much time to make a decent assessment of her true intelligence.

“I can't decide that yet. It's a partner project so that's something that will need to be decided with said partner… Assuming I can't convince the professor to let me do it alone.”

“I'll be your partner for the paper. There, now you have a partner to decide with… So, ideas?” Abe felt like this conversation was a carnival ride that he had no idea how to get off and could only ride out to the end. His only true course of action was to go along with the flow… And he supposed being partnered with Artemis was better than being forced to work with someone he had no confidence in at all. At the very least, he felt he could trust her to attempt to pull her own weight in the project. And, if he was taking the phrase literally, that was actually quite a lot considering muscle mass being so dense.

“I… um… There's so many interesting topics to choose from.” The choices started to overwhelm him slightly as he really thought about it. “Do you remember if the syllabus indicates any guidelines for what topics we can do?”

“The syllabus only specifies it needs to be a researchable topic of some kind and past students of the professor all say the topic for it has always been whatever the students decide on themselves, granted there's enough research available.” It sounded like she had really put some proper consideration into the project already. “What about, how do you feel about history?”

History was great. While there were obviously all sides and perspectives, it was facts set in stone. New information could be found but not change the actual facts so much as shine new light on that part of history. “History is a decent subject…”

“Then, what do you think about doing our research paper on the history of the college and surrounding area? It's a specific enough topic that there's focus but also broad enough that not only should there be a ton of research material, we can probably pick to focus on whatever parts interest us most. Even if past students did the same topic, it wouldn't feel like we're copying them.” It did sound like a good idea with quite sound reasoning.

“Okay. Do… um…” Once the idea was in his head, he started itching to get started on it right away. No point in putting it off, right? “Do you want to head to the library and start looking for sources we can use now, then?”

“Abe,” she gave a playful smile, “I thought you'd never ask…” It was clear even to him that she was teasing, but it wasn't a hurtful sort. Instead, it felt like the two were in on a personal joke between them. Not that Abe had any clue what the actual joke was.

***

Artemis, despite what her highschool teachers may have thought, actually liked researching things. It just had to be a topic that caught her attention. And the history of this place had been doing just that lately…

What had happened over all those years for so many legends and tales to be going around? She'd heard at least ten different ones during or since that party last week. Arty didn't know the reason for all the weird stories she'd been hearing, but her curiosity was definitely peaked.

Thus why she had suggested the topic and why she was now going through the library’s digital catalog for which books they had concerning the topic. There was a surprisingly decent amount available considering the localized nature of the subject. It seemed quite a number of scholars and alumni had written books on the college and the area it was located in.

She turned to her partner in this endeavor. “So,” she showed him the current list she'd made so far of some books, “do you think this will be enough research material for us to start with?” Arty had written the fifteen or so most promising ones based on title and description.

“I suppose we should locate them to check out and see… Shall we?”

“Sure. It looks like most of them are in a section on the second floor. Do you want to divy up the lists or just each collect our own lists and meet back up somewhere?”

“It might be more effective to divide the lists based on books that should be near each other. Less running all over the place that way… Let me see your list and I'll sort them.” She hands it to him and he quickly jots down two new lists containing the books they both had listed. “There's two books from down here which I can get and the rest look to be all in the same general area so I grouped the ones that should be on the same shelves. I'll see you upstairs and we can grab one of the available study rooms up there when we find them all.” 

“Alright, see you soon, then.” Abe was so smart and strategic about things. Arty was impressed as usual as she made her way up the stairs. 

In a far corner, she started collecting the books on her half of the combined list. They seemed to be the ones focused on the founding years of the college. Then a book not on the list catches her eye. She didn't remember it coming up in any of the searches she'd done despite seeming to be on the topic she was looking for and all the books around it having at least been mentioned in the catalog. An Albino Squirrel’s Unofficial Guide to Silverwood University; History and Customs. She added it to her growing pile. More was better, right?

Just then, Abe peeked around the corner. “Almost done?” He whispered just loud enough for her to hear and nod before heading towards him. Arty gestured towards a study room she'd noticed was free when she passed it earlier.

As soon as they were in the room with the door closed and books set down, they started going through them. “This one is smaller than I expected. I think we can set it to the side as that thicker one probably has similar information in addition to more. We won't know what overlapping information any have without reading them all, but we should probably start with a few really promising ones for now so we don't get swamped with information from the very beginning.” And like that, they narrowed it down to five books each, making note of the rest in case they decided they needed more later.

It was getting close to time for Arty's next class so they headed downstairs to check out their selection. The librarian smiled as they came up to the desk. “Here for even more books, Mr. Flamel?” Abe gave a sheepish look. 

“Yeah… We're getting a head start on Professor Wright's research paper.” Arty stayed quiet, mostly just observing as the woman scanned each book for borrowing. She couldn't put her finger on why, but Abe's last name sounded familiar to her. 

The librarian turned to her. “And yours, Ma’am? Along with your id, of course…”