Petty stopped on a step and crossed his arms, satisfied by the questioned he had placed on Karli for now and awaited a reply from Karli.

She might get angry…

"What I'm doing in this place..." Karli began, open the hatch more with quite some effort. "Is figuring out what this place was for and possibly offering this old building..." She flung the hatch open, bracing herself for the loud crack of wood on wood when it landed. "Someone who can actually attend to its needs before it falls to ruin like so many other places in the realm," she replied calmly, taking a seat on the stairs and staring down at Petty.

"Cuz from the state of this place, there seems to be limitations to the abilities of spooks," she replied patiently, nodding to the spectre child as she spied her ease dropping on their conversation.

"No," she added after a moment, glancing into the belfry. "I'm not the owner. If I felt I owned it, you wouldn't still be here," she told Petty quite bluntly, sticking half of herself into the belfry and peering about.

"The Archive room is the one place I've found without a resident ghost. I've cleaned it, I've added to it I gave it purpose again. And now," she continued, peering back down the flight of stairs. "I refer to it as my room. Because I live in it. Places like this are rightfully built to be lived in, not to be dead in," she finished as though she needn't be explaining this in the first place. "Like the manor in Cottley wasn't built so that it could be burnt down. This place wasn't built so it could rot to the ground."

Asks as many questions as my kids...

Hoisting herself into the belfry, she disappeared from Petty's sight.

She seems so sure of herself.

Petty uncrossed his arms and slowly made his way up the stairs. Inside he was confused with conflicting thoughts and emotions. Petty didn’t care for some of the questions he asked, but found them forming, he was enraged at Karli for some reason, for her near sightedness of the situation she was in, for her unbudging views and cockiness that her words held the answers.

True answers come from the questions and ideas you hide from fear of the answer, release the dread and truth will come find you, not you find the truth…

Reaching the open hatch, Petty jumped up, holding onto the sides and hoisting himself up with greater ease than he thought he would need for it.

"This place is not for living in, it’s purpose is death, like the grave yard, this is just a huge grave yard, life comes and goes here, but the life isn’t important the death is where the life lies…." Uttered Petty ignoring all of his surroundings and mostly any action from Karli.

Petty halted and looked up before closing his eyes and crossing his arms. "Ever thought that the archive might not have a goes because the owner wasn’t yet dead?"

"Do you believe in fate? The manor of Cottley was built not to be burnt down you say, but it may have been built for those reasons, it’s completion just a step towards the final outcome, like all actions a step to a predetermined ending…those spirits which recede here, had no choice but to die, it was their life to die, it was all they were ever going to do from the day of their creation…."

Petty opened his eyes and looked down at Karli. "You see, not all places are built to be lived in, just people like you believe it is built for the living, this place was built for death….."

Petty walked across the bat dropping covered floor to a wall and leaned up against it looking across at Karli, his arms still crossed.

Karli listened to Petty's stint, ignoring the majority of the inquisition, she raised an eyebrow at Petty as she turned to face him suddenly.

"And who's to say fate hasn't brought me here to make this place my own?"

Petty did his best to not laugh at Karli but his lips curled up to a grin and a chuckle escaped his mouth.

"You think you can claim this place? This place claims you, you already died, you are half way there to becoming part of this place…" Petty wiped a tear from his eye.

"You are in no position to claim anything, you can’t even remove the bats from here…you don’t even dare stay here, and the fact remains, you still haven’t removed the true owner of this place yet…"

Hmm "…or know who it is, I’ve learnt a lot just being here and you have a library and don’t know the simplest things….so how can it be fated for you to claim this place if you can’t even do the simplest things…you can’t even listen to truths without dismissing the ones which upset you or you don’t approve of, weaving your new truth and being mislead by it."