Ethan ran his hand against the rough brick wall behind Elysium, searching for the sigil Ashley had told him about. It was etched into a staff-door. He pressed his thumb against the rune, whispering the incantation Ashley had taught him.

Aperi mihi fundamentum scientiae

Ecce tibi gratiam novi cum totius mundi doctrina

Aspicio ad te cum reverentia

Doctrinam tuam ad me fer

Ethan paused, but there was no outward change. Did he mispronouce the words? Not suprising, he wasn't exactly an expert in ecclesiastical Latin. Ethan opened the door, expecting it to be locked or open to a normal room. Instead, he was temporarily blinded by a golden light that flooded out of the doorway.

Ethan recoiled from the light. It shone so bright and hot that it nearly burned. Despite the fact that the light made his skin crawl like it was covered in ants, a sensation that matches the last time he attempted to enter a synagogue, he stepped through.

He didn't feel himself move, instead the world shifted around him as he passed through the golden barrier as if he was being pulled through a grain sieve. He stumbled, disoriented and almost tripping over his own feet as he fell out of the dingy alley behind Elysium and into a vast plane of ancient parchment, polished wood and marble, an library that seemed to stretch on, ad Infinium. The bookshelves, towering structures built like skyscrapers, stretched so far up that Ethan couldn't see an end.

"What the heck- heck- he-" Ethan blurted out, stumbling over the last word which refused to come out correctly. He paused, about to start again, mostly out of pure defiance. "Hec-"

"Don't bother. Del had this place consecrated so hard you can't even mention the lower planes." Ashley spoke up, interrupting his cursing. He perched on a library bench next to the blonde he met last time he visited Elysium, presumably Del.

"Consider yourself lucky you didn't burst into flames; Pulling down the wards on such short notice can lead to unexpected affects." Del spoke up, face twisted into a minor grimace.

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"I feel very lucky." Ethan snarked. Unlike last time, she wasn't surrounded by a halo of offensively bright light, though she was quite hard to look at.

"Let’s get on with this." Del sighed as she hoped of the bench. "Let’s start with the basics. What do you know about paracosmology?"

"I'm a Gemini?"

"Ooh. I'm a Libra!" Ashley spoke up.

Del closed her eyes then sighed deeply. She stayed silent for a few seconds then opened her eyes again. "...Cancer."

...

"The best place to start is your heritage. The circles of heaven and hell all have their own unique magic. Paracosmology, the study of the other realms, outlines their widely understood structures. In hell, the circles fall roughly along the lines of the seven deadly sins or more aptly the seven deadly flaws: pride, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony, sloth and sorrow. We need to find out which one you are." Del explained. "Step into the circle."

Ethan did as he was told, stepping into the chalk circle in the centre of the library.

"Word of warning. If you thought the entrance was unpleasant, you may or may not really hate this." Del lifted up her hand, summoning a staff that resembled a gnarled golden tree branch. "It depends, although the pain will be a lot more... emotional."

"May not?" Ashley interjected.

"There's always a chance that he could take it relatively well." Del shrugged as she brought the staff down on the outside of the circle. "The spell will cause a flood of emotions that correspond to your circle."

"I'll drop it after a few seconds," She used the staff to draw glowing letters in a foreign script around the circle. "Are you ready?"

Ethan took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah. Let's do this."

Del brought the staff down, and Ethan was consumed by a bright light and a sudden surge of energy. It was overwhelming sadness, sorrow so sharp it lanced into him like a thousand razor sharp wires. Tears welled up in his eyes as he was assaulted by images of other people's horrible memories mixed with some of his own: A young man, kneeling in front of an open grave, his face twisted in grief as he stared at his brother's coffin being lowered into the ground, Ashley in an empty factory with a gun barrel to his forehead, himself, as a child, crying and begging his father not to leave him, his mother, tossing a ruby engagement ring into the Hudson river.

Ethan collapsed to his knees, tears in his eyes. It was too much, he couldn't take it. Del quickly dropped the spell, and the pain and tears stopped abruptly. Ethan felt dizzy and disoriented, like he'd been swept up by a twister.

"What did you feel?"

"Sorrow, definitely."

"Interesting. That... explains a lot." Del frowned. "Next lesson." Del tapped her staff against the floor. The scripts disappeared and she started to walk away, down one of the library's infinite halls.