Welcome to the Spirit Library

This is the 4th session of the Mystery of the Haunted Library campaign for The Investigation Crew.

The Ivory gang awakens. Not in their own dorms but in a library. They awaken at the same table with everyone present except Blake. They think this is obviously a dream and Mylo pinches Adrian. Mylo feels that he pinched Adrian, but Adrian feels nothing. Adrian tries rolling the dice as they land on their side, something that shouldn’t even be possible. They find it strange how everyone is having the same dream. They try to look around this library location. It seems very familiar to the library they know but also vastly different with infinitely long hallways. All the books simply look exactly as the last novel each individual person read.

They find a very old school computer whose only use is command line prompts. Amanda uses her advanced computer skills to determine the computer was a model by Xaviersoft from 1982. The gang notices that a central clock for the library has been stuck at 10:30 since they arrived. A wisp is sighted in the library and the crew watches it rearrange the books. The group in this time runs into the security guard from the cafeteria learning that he and the three girls who saw the eye were all here in the library. The next time the group sees one of these wisps Amanda grabs it and it turns from the little ball of light into a small hooded humanoid figure. The wisp refers to the gang as ‘hummies’ and how that it is really bad they are here. The Ivory gang learns that they currently reside within the Spirit Library, a place a human should never be. The wisp panics saying that ‘he’ is coming referring to a guardian of sorts. A girl’s scream is heard. The lights start to go out and the wisp quickly tells the group to go down a certain hallway for 15 minutes at which point you will reach a fork where you must go left and climb up the bookshelves to escape. The group begins to run away and towards the exit as the lights continue going out as if following them.

Mylo glances backwards as they run to see a lanky and scary figure within the darkness. Similar to the creature within the video from the first day at Ivory Academy. Everybody except the security guard is able to outrun the darkness. Amanda still thinks this is obviously a dream so why shouldn’t they just go into the darkness so it can end. Everyone else dismisses that and they continue running together. They reach the fork and go left. They reach a dead end where 20-30 ft above them lies the exit. Everyone begins to climb and only Mylo makes it up. The rest of the group tries to get up to no avail as Mylo sees them be consumed by darkness. The darkness doesn’t reach Mylo. The sound of metal boots approaching them is heard. A wisp appears to those in the darkness who tell them “quick! This way!” as it opens up a bookcase. The group retreats into the bookcase passage and as it finishes closing Mylo sees the creature, who looks similar to Fiddlesticks, arrive below him. He sees a red lantern illuminate its location as it starts to attack the nearby bookshelves as if infuriated.

Mylo continues pushing forward not knowing what happened to his friends. He notices the books here aren’t the same as those on the floor before. They are in an unknown language. They seem like runes and have titles this time. Mylo finds a pocked book with golden letters (I imagined it as blue hardcover book with gold letters) illuminated with a blue hue from the nearby lights. He hides it on his person as he continues.

During this time the spirit continues to guide the darkness crew away from the monster. Adrian accidentally trips and falls into Amanda. They crash into a bookcase. The monster is alerted, and they begin to run as fast as they can towards a doorway. Adrian is able to make it through but everyone else is swallowed by tendrils of darkness. Everyone caught is brought into their own personal darkness with no image, no sound, only the individual and the dark. Adrian stands at the doorway as a creature holds four illuminated lanterns who emanate the voice of his friends. The creature presents him with a simple choice. Hey may have all four of his friends returned in exchange for the dice. Adrian tries to bargain to give one dice, get his friends back and then give the rest after. The creature says all the dice or nothing. Adrian debates whether he can truly trust this creature and asks why he doesn’t just grab them from him right away. The creature tries to put its hand through the doorway and as it passes the border the part inside the doorway turns to sand. In the end Adrian hands over the dice. His friends and the security guard are released. The darkness along with the creature and dice disappears. The crew continues through the doorway to find staircases leading up.

At this time Mylo runs into a room with three doors. One in front of him, one on the left, and one on the right. The front door goes down, the left goes up and Mylo takes the way up. He finds a dusty attic and a mirror that states “to awaken from this horrible nightmare, read this poem”. Mylo reads the poem and says “oh great old one under the earth, what is it you hide? Oh great old one, what is it you love. Oh great old one, what is it you want? Oh great old one, what will it take for us to guide your might hand?”. Mylo awakens and the book is not on his person, he immediately heads to Adrian’s room to check up on him since it is the closest. The darkness crew reaches the same three doors and choose the path that leads up to the attic. They go into the same room Mylo was in and find the poem. Before they read the poem and leave Adrian grabs a book along the way.

Adrian awakens to Mylo knocking at the door. He opens it and notices his dice are gone but the book he took was on his nightstand. Mylo says for Adrian to come with him quickly to his room to see if the book Mylo took was on his nightstand. The book inlaid with golden lettering was there. At some point Adrian is stress eating ice cream. The two go to check on Jax and they text the group chat to see if the girls are okay. Jax and Mylo grab popsicles before checking on Blake. The three boys find Blake on his phone still awake. He has not slept yet and the boys decide he cannot be allowed to, or he might be whisked to the Spirit Library. Everyone decides to meet up right away after the current events. Amanda apologizes for thinking it was all actually a dream and not taking it seriously before. Amanda is able to find an online newspaper archive which states in 1982 the old Ivory Tower library was burned down and resulted in the death of 20 people. 18 students, a janitor, and unknown. The fire started sometime in the morning. The group grabs Cyrus’s blacklight to look at both Hamilton’s books and those from the Spirit Library. When investigating Hamilton’s book one is titled “The Scarlet Knight” (was it this one with the poems?). Adrien’s book is a copy of Shakespeare and Mylo’s has golden text inside as well in the same runic language. The group decides to head to the library and talk to Hamilton to see if he would know anything. They end up finding out there may be a Rosicrutian church is the forest between the school and town.

Everyone tries their best to stay awake that night but Amanda, Audrey, Adrian, and Mylo fall asleep again. Adrien and Amanda remain okay but Amanda, who fell asleep first, awakens in the library. She instantly goes down the same path and climbs the bookcases to the doorway. Sooner after Mylo arrives in the library and sprints full speed towards the same path he took before. They meet at the doorway above the bookcases. This time Amanda wants to see where the downward stairs lead and Mylo agrees. As they continue descending they are suddenly in a hallway, however they did not feel the point where it changed from steps to this hallway. At the end of the hallway there is a light with a closed door. Mylo suggests going to check it out but Amanda convinces him to go back. During this time Mylo makes jokes about their current situation which are ill-received by Amanda. They go back to the attic and read the poem to get out. The next day classes have no homework and Mylo hears back about his job being offered a Junior Vice Shift Manager position with an interview TBD. After class the gang sees ambulances arriving at the girls dorm. Three girls are wheeled out and the Ivory Gang hear that the girls are in critical condition and unresponsive. The crew knows this means that the girls were unable to escape the Spirit Library.