MINI EVENT: GHOST RESCUE

[sticksandbonesmods]

A HEARTBEAT BENEATH THE STAIRS

As the season turns, and blood sinks into the ground of the Grove, as monsters with your face haunt the halls, waiting to pounce, something else is creeping into light. Distantly one might see a light in the forest at night, and the next it comes closer. And closer. Until in the treeline you can see it: a pitch black manor that looks as if it’s covered in ash. The trees act as its gates, rebuffing anyone who tries to investigate, and the air smells like rot. Something watches in the windows, but vanishes when you blink.

… But not even this dark manor can stand in the way of one very angry grandfather skeleton, who will, eventually, rattle his teeth and bones in a rallying cry and urge others to follow him, sword in hand. It’s time to storm the castle, and Mr. Bone-Jangles has had enough.

The air within the manor is frigid and biting, and the inside itself is as decrepit as you may expect. Lights and candles can light the way… but only for a few minutes. The wood creaks as if the building is breathing slowly, and sometimes you here a loud thum-thump, as if its unseen heart beats while you explore.

For an already imposing building, inside seems even larger and there’s almost no end in sight as it feels like the halls wind on forever and more and more rooms, from libraries to studies to bedrooms to- … is this room dedicated to WWE Wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson? … Needless to say, there’s a lot to work through, but Bone-Jangles urges you onward.

Wisps of color drift through. Are they your friends? Or something else?

A NIGHTMARE ON YOUR LIPS

And to those who have been locked away for days, perhaps weeks, nothing in this house feels real. Is it a dream? Is it a nightmare? The mere mention of a potential addition from your lips manifests another new room within the manor, but you cannot touch anything. Light hurts and makes you dizzy, while the night is painfully cold. How long has it been? How long will it be?

The burst of life is- new. Exciting. Distantly, you know these people, but the urges of death are whimsical and cruel. Part of you wants to guide them to the attic, where your souls are chained in full to a portrait of you. Break those portraits, and you're free, coming back to life outside, which is what you want, isn't it? Another part of you wants to chase them out, how dare they intrude upon your afterlife? Another yet thinks it’s time to play, but no longer remembers what ‘play’ is- so surely they can dodge the plates and books, right? Right!



And another yet wants the intruders dead. And if not by your hands, then by the demons guarding this world alongside you.

(CODE)

Comments

[ephemeralflow]

[Yes, that sounds about right. Timekeeper has the location of the section memorized in a flash, and considering how large this library is? She's absolutely flying there, because she can. Out comes one of the Embroider halves, which she perches on and starts zooming down the corridors towards the appropriate shelves.

She'll slow as she approaches the zoology subsection, scanning the shelving labels for a section on birds. Is this long abandoned library still organized enough to lead her to the right place? (Is it even wise for her to be in this very clearly haunted library on her own? Well, the ghost or spirit or whatever it is here has so far only seen fit to toss her some simple clues, so she'll worry about that if things turn hostile.)]

[alphacraft]

[ It's a little out of the way, but Timekeeper makes it to the Zoology section safely.

A sign at the end of each Zoology shelf, and there are several, lists the subsections and their codes in order. There are no markers on the shelves themselves, but it isn't too hard to browse through to the section on birds.

Nothing special happens on her arrival there. ]

[ephemeralflow]

[And so. She looks for a book about jays, or magpies, or any variety of corvid, really. Or even just a book in this section that stands out suspiciously. As she does so, however, she gives a melodramatic sigh.]

Look at me, picking through books in a library. If a ghost was going to send me on a scavenger hunt, could it not have been one a little more fun?

[She says. In the middle of a haunted house. Which everyone knows is the absolute best place to tempt fate ever.]

[alphacraft]

[ Ask, and ye shall receive! A book several feet up pulls itself out and drops, aiming for Timekeeper's head.

It's about seagulls. ]

[ephemeralflow]

[As a library should be, it's pretty quiet in here. Timekeeper hears the scrape of something moving in one of the shelves, but the cavernous room echoes in a way that she can't quite tell where it's coming from. She's only just paused and glanced over her shoulder - and then the book clonks into her head, knocking her top hat off entirely.]

Aktch! [She rubs at her head, leaning down to retrieve her hat first and resituate it. More important. Her eyebrow twitches.] No, no, that's "painful," not "fun." My, this spirit must have been cooped up for entirely too long.

[After that, however, she picks up the fallen book, examining its title with some slight annoyance.] Seagulls, now? Should I assume this another clue, or simply an inconsequential tool of spite?

[...Despite herself, she does sound less bored now. It's definitely more interesting if she can trade sass with the ghost.]

[alphacraft]

[ It was partly a hint, but since Timekeeper seems to be looking in the wrong places Odile will give her another. Something else falls from a similar height to the ground a few feet to her right, shattering into metallic shards on impact. The only piece that doesn't break is an ornament cap. ]

[ephemeralflow]

Oho, getting testy now I see! My, you'd think a ghost in a library would at least find something to write on, rather than playing spirit charades.

[It's as close as Timekeeper is going to get to admitting she's maybe kind of bad at charades. She doesn't give the shattered ornament a second glance, but she does look up towards the area both objects fell from.]

Honestly, I can't even tell if you're trying to tell me to look up there or find a way downwards. Spooky basements are quite the cliche in places like this, yes?

[alphacraft]

[ About five feet up there are two visible spaces between the books. One is clearly where the seagull book came from, but the other looks like 5 or 6 books were taken out. Perhaps she should look closer? ]

[ephemeralflow]

[Hmm, that's definitely not enough space for one book and maybe?? an ornament. All right, it's not as if reaching high shelves is effort for her (rumors that she learned levitation magic to offset her height might have some kernel of truth to them), so she'll float on up to investigate that gap.]

[alphacraft]

[ There's some kind of nest in the space on the shelf. It seems to be made of pages torn out from different books, and filled with knicknacks. There's another ornament, beautifully painted with the face of the Mona Lisa. A Statue of Liberty keychain, an ornate hair pin, and other small but beautiful items fill the nest. ]

[ephemeralflow]

Well, how cute. I suppose a magpie might make a nest like this, were it trapped in a library.

[She picks through the items in the nest, seeing if any of them stand out. The tiny replicas of human works of art mean nothing to her, unfortunately. The hairpin isn't something she'd typically wear, but it is pretty, maybe she'll pocket that one. (Who's the magpie here again?)

If none of the trinkets are terribly interesting, she'll check the torn pages the nest is built of instead, to see if there's any pattern to them.]

[alphacraft]

[ The nest is all just pretty odds and ends. The torn pages all seem to have something to do with art. In fact, if she looks close enough, the font is exactly the same on each of them, as if they came from the same book.

Maybe if she looks closer, she might be able to find out which book it was? ]

[ephemeralflow]

[Ah, they very much do look like they're from the same book! Timekeeper removes the baubles into their own pile, trying to shuffle the pages straight so she can examine them more closely. Any telltale headers or footers? An index or title page, if she's lucky? She leans back comfortably on the Embroider as she flips through them, drifting closer to the nearest light source.]

First birds, then art. I certainly didn't expect a haunting to be so quaint. The ghost of a gentle soul, perhaps? Hmmm...

...such kindness is wasted on me.

[alphacraft]

[ She is extremely lucky! Or else Odile just really wants someone to figure this out and help her escape this limbo. There's an actual title page: Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style by Michael Baxandall. What a title. That should be enough to get her to the next clue, right? ]

[ephemeralflow]

[How fortuitous! Timekeeper singles that page out, leaving the others on a random shelf.]

Ah, here we go. What a mouthful. [And meaningless to her. What's Italy? That doesn't exist in cookie world.] I'm off to the section about art next, I suppose? [She's already flying off, looking around for another, closer directory or simply said section itself.] And then looking for this title, I'd imagine. Starting with P...

[Sigh. Guess who wasn't a library cookie.]

[alphacraft]

[ Odile follows. She has a feeling she's going to be dropping more books on Timekeeper's head.

The Fine Arts section is back the way they came from, but the Painting subsection is easy enough to find. The books are, of course, ordered by precise subject and then Author's last name, in this case "Michael Baxandall".

It's near the top of the incredibly tall shelves. ]

[ephemeralflow]

[Finding the section and subsection is simple enough, but...]

My, are these not organized at all? How annoying. [Is she looking at the authors' names? Nnnnnnope. Hasn't occurred to her.] And not scary at all, I might add. Rather poor for a haunted mansion.

[She is, however, beginning to quickly scan the book titles... starting with the bottom shelf. She's pretty sure Dipper wouldn't haunt like this, but really the only reason she hasn't abandoned this puzzle on a whim is because she's resolved to see this situation to the end, for his sake. Even if this is someone else who got killed by a doppelganger, their clues may yet lead somewhere that helps everyone.

...but if she figures out who this is she's still going to tease them for being the most boring ghost forever.]

[alphacraft]

[ Yes, there is truly only one answer.

A single, small book falls from the top shelf directly above TK's head. ]

[ephemeralflow]

[THWAP. There goes her hat, again. That one she didn't even hear move. Timekeeper looks up at the shelf above her, rubbing her head where the book struck.

For a brief second, she's actually frowning. No one here but herself and the ghost, right?]

For a ghost haunting a library, you're certainly not fond of using words, are you?

[But, fine, she gets the idea. She will take the appropriate few hat retrieving moments, very important, before floating up to investigate that top shelf. Hmm. No, this one doesn't look any better organized to her. But surely what she seeks is here, if the pattern follows? Let's skim these titles one by one!]

[alphacraft]

[ If she could use words there would be a message spelled out in book titles for Timekeeper to read. She's not sure why, but something is preventing her from putting her thoughts into words. It's as if she can't remember how.

It will take a long time going one book at a time, but eventually Timekeeper will find the book whose index page she's carrying. The dustjacket looks odd, like it's far too big. ]

[ephemeralflow]

[Aha! Looks like her method totally, absolutely, irrefutably worked. Yup! Nothing wrong here!

Timekeeper picks up the book, noting the oversized dust jacket immediately. Well, that's coming off right away to see what's underneath it, then.]

[alphacraft]

[ "Flowers in the Attic".

No, Odile has not read these books.

She also did not plan anything beyond this point in the puzzle. She really thought the mission would be obvious by now... ]

[ephemeralflow]

[Fortunately, that does do a pretty good job of making it obvious. Really, the only question now might be how much the mansion itself objects to Timekeeper trying to make it there.]

Aha, I see! The attic, is it? Well, it certainly took long enough to get here. And I cannot even have the wasted time properly processed and disposed of...

[What does she mean by that? Don't worry about it. Timekeeper tucks the book into her hip pouch just in case it's still important, then zips off towards the library's exit, on the hunt now for anything in the building leading upwards. Stairs, elevators, a cleverly hidden door in the ceiling...?]