Thread: Darkness Falls WHO: Ms. Stheno, Craig and Emily WHEN: Friday afternoon WHERE: The Library Open: to anyone who wants to react!
Ms. Stheno’s heels clicked on the marble as she walked back to her desk at a brisk pace. Nature had called. She was still wearing her sunglasses, as she always was, not wanting to turn any students or teachers into stone. The snakes on her head did all the looking for her anyway, giving her a perfect, 360 degree vision. It helped her keeping an eye on everything that went on in the old, extensive library.
Nearby, students were working, cramming for their finals. It was funny: during the month of May - when all the finals happened -- she never had to make sure everyone was silent. The students, frantic for the end of year examinations, actually developed a work ethic. That did mean they were less careful with the books, though. Some flipped through them so quickly, Ms. Stheno feared they would rip the pages.
The Gorgon sat down by her desk, not realizing someone had attached something to the back of her chair. She went to work, her ruby-red finger nails clicking away on the keyboard of her computer. She was entering some new titles into the library database, her fingers lovingly stroking the new books as she flipped through them. Hers was a library she was proud of. It was the most complete supernatural library in all of North-America.
She didn’t realize she was falling asleep until it was too late. Her snakes were the first to suffer from it: slowly, they curled up on her scalp, moving around less and less. The two snake-heads looking at the screen curled up last, but by then, Ms. Stheno was already slumped over her keyboard, head resting on her arms.
Soon, she was sleeping.
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Across the room, sitting at one of the rectangular study tables, Craig was keeping a careful eye on the librarian while pretending to study a book on supernatural creatures of Central America. He’d been there for a couple hours already, and when the librarian had finally gotten up to use the restroom, he’d had his chance. Craig had walked over to her desk with his backpack on his back. Looking like he was returning a book, he pulled out his dreamcatcher, quickly pinning it to the back of the chair. He turned it so the front of the chair would be facing the librarian upon her return, then moved back to his seat.
Craig tapped his foot against the floor while he waited, finding that he was feeling quite impatient and nervous about all this. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t a big deal, apparently, students snuck into the restricted section of the library all the time. He probably hadn’t even needed to be as planful about it as he had been, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d had to make sure nothing would go wrong. That had even included finding himself an accomplice.
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When Craig first mentioned sneaking into the restricted section nothing could have stopped her from jumping at the chance...well except maybe meeting Stan Lee….but back on point. Emily was pleased that he did plan it out, she was a very plan oriented girl and doing something that she was sure going to get her in detention if there were caught warranted having a plan. Also her father and her brother were a little stunned that barely a few weeks into the school year she served detention. Her father scolded her over the phone but when she went camping with Evan he mentioned it then gave her a very small fist bump. He had been no angel in school and wanted to give her props for no longer being the goody-goody brainiac anymore. Well she still was pretty smart if anyone asked her but goody-goody...learning she was a witch seemed to have changed all that.
She tried to act calm and pretend to be reading a book about green magic. She had been wanting to learn anyway and planned on checking the book out later and try to learn it on her own...if Barclay continued to be….himself. Her eyes kept slipping over to the librarian or up to Craig waiting for the right moment. Emily had to focus hard on her breathing, not wanting to alert anyone else that something amiss was going on. After the dream catcher was in place and Craig was back in his seat, she let out a breath. Now they just had to wait. She would have focused back on her book if the tapping wasn’t drawing all her attention. She slowly raised her eyes to meet his and fixed him with a serious stare. She gently placed her foot on top of his and gave it a little pressure to stop,
“Calm down or you’re going to bust us before we even do anything,” she harshly whispered quickly followed by a loud hushing noise from the librarian.
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“I’m not-”, Craig started to whisper back, stopping when he heard the shushing sound. Instead he reached into his backpack, pulling out a red spiral-bound notebook and flipping to the back page. He took a pen and started writing, ‘I always fidget. Can’t help it. I’ll try not to.’ He tilted the page for her to see and shrugged his shoulders. He glanced down at his book, which he hadn’t actually been reading. It might have been a good idea to grab a book that would have interested him more, but he’d wanted to be focused on the task at hand. He tried not to fidget, settling for wriggling his toes inside his shoe. He tried to imagine what he might find in the restricted section, and that helped to settle him and occupy his mind some. If it really had information on the most powerful kinds of magic in there, maybe he could find something that would ease his fears about losing more loved ones, a powerful protective charm or ward or something. He had a few other things he wanted to look up too, such as the books on magical sex positions that Barclay had claimed were in there and had been trying to sell him. No way was he paying for something he could get himself. But he hadn’t mentioned that one to Emily. Craig had gotten sufficiently lost in his thoughts and hadn’t noticed that the nest of snakes on the top of the gorgon librarian’s head had stopped wriggling about.
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Emily glanced at the notebook and gave a little sigh at his little shrug. Pulling out a pen she scribbled back, ‘well try not to, it makes you look suspicious.’ She then focused her attention back to her book. Although the book was probably very interesting and informative her mind was racing with the thrill of what was probably hiding in the restricted section. What kind of magic or spells were so dangerous that they’d have to hide. The pull to see was just as alluring as the promises the fairy circle had promised her on the field trip. The promise of power and control always was such a temptation to her. She knew that the best way was age and practice, the easy way was never the best way. But it would be so great. She often had a little fantasy in her head. She was dressed like Elsa from Frozen and she was twirling around singing “Let it Go” while she made snow fall around her.
She started quietly humming “Let it Go” to herself as the little fantasy played out in her head. Power was so tempting. She heard another harsh shushing noise but noticed it sounded a little slurred. The strangeness of that caused Emily to come out of her fantasy and for her eyes to gaze over at the librarian. Some of her snakes and seemed to slump and she noticed her head keep drooping then shooting up. The dream catcher was working. Her body went rigid as she tried to hold in her excitement. She poked Craig’s foot with hers as she tried to make casual motions with her head in the direction of the librarian.
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Craig had to bite back an annoyed reply when Emily’s foot hit against his again. He gave her an irritated look, then glanced over toward the librarian when he saw her motioning. The gorgon was barely moving now, and looked to be just about totally asleep. He looked back at Emily, then started writing again. ‘5 minutes to be sure she’s asleep, then we can go for it.’ Craig couldn’t help grinning to himself for a moment. Both of Craig’s legs were bouncing now as he sat and watched the librarian, not even able to pretend anything else as his excitement was getting the better of him.
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Emily nodded back excitedly. Craig’s knees bouncing didn’t bother her this time as she was bouncing her feet as her heart sped up in anticipation. Her eyes shot over to her cellphone keeping track of the time. The minute five minutes hit she closed her big book as quietly as she could. She eyed the librarian warily but the very distinctive snore gave her all the reassurance she needed.
“Let’s go,” she whispered to Craig as she moved around the table and gave a little tug on his forearm.
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Craig nodded in return. He quickly but quietly slid his book and notebook back into his bag and stood, putting his bag over his shoulder. He had to make a point not to glance around the room, though he wanted to. He knew he should try to look as not suspicious as possible. Craig walked them past the librarian’s desk, and he did look out the corner of his eye at her just to be sure,and she was indeed quite asleep. The restricted section was beyond her desk, behind a shelf of reference books, located where no one could enter without going past her first. Despite the supposed ease of this so far, Craig was still wishing he’d had cloak of invisibility.
He stopped in front of the doorway. There was no door, just a small hallway with a couple turns in it so the end was not visible from the main library room. A couple warning signs were set around the doorway. Craig stopped to look at these. They sounded quite stern and severe, and gave Craig pause, but he reminded himself that other students did this too. This really wasn’t big deal. Gaining the needed courage, Craig stepped into the hall, and just a few steps later they were there.
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After her initial sweep Emily also chose to not look around, she just focused on her target and moved as quietly as she could behind Craig. Had she been playing D&D her rogue would be doing acrobatic skill checks and using her wall crawling ability. Also she did just get a cloak that allowed her to travel through shadows which would be very helpful in this instance. But alas she was not her rogue and she wasn’t the most coordinated of girls to do acrobatics. So she just had to do the normal tip toeing that she mastered as a child who would sneak out first thing in the morning to get a look at her Christmas presents before the rest of the house.
A huge grin spread on her face and she had to bite her lip to hold in a squeal as they were in the restricted section. This was such a rush. Now she could see why Trent enjoyed pranks so much. The danger and risk of getting caught. It was thrilling. She moved past Craig further into the section no longer worrying about someone seeing them as it was hidden from the rest of the library. Her hand skimmed over the books as she read over the titles. She pulled one out and flipped through the pages seeing if anything caught her fancy. Mostly the book was about necromancy, not really her cup of tea. So she continued looking over the titles seeing if any mentioned weather magic.
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Craig stopped just inside the doorway, taking in the sight of the legendary (to him) restricted section of the library. It was a decent-sized space, considering that every thing in it was supposedly off limits to students for one reason or another. It might have been his imagination playing tricks on him, but even the air smelled old and full of mystery and potential. While Emily pushed past and dove in, Craig took a few more moments to breathe it all in before moving to explore.
Turning to his right, Craig began to look over the volumes on the shelves. He couldn’t make out any organization to them, though there had to be some reason or order to it. He was looking for a few moments before he remembered there were specific things he was wanting to keep an eye out for. He glanced over at Emily, wondering if he should ask her to look, but she appeared to be pretty engrossed in the room as well. He’d let her do her thing and he would do his.
He pulled out one book, curious about it’s title, a long and ancient sounding word, but having the root ‘vampir’ in it. Interested, he flipped it open. It felt cool in his hand and heavy, and he only kept it open for a moment before shutting it suddenly and putting it back. He’d seen incantations an an illustration, of a vampire dying most gruesomely. Craig frowned to himself. Dangerous section indeed. The next book catching his interest was ‘mating with monsters’. The title was a bit offensive, but it sounded interesting, so Craig gave it a look. He pulled it out, leafing through it longer than the last. It wasn’t Barclay’s fabled supernatural kama sutra, but the illustrations were no less graphic. His browsing slowed in the chapter about werecreatures, morbidly fascinated by it. No surprise that most of the pictures in that particular chapter were all some form of doggy style.
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Emily glanced over her shoulder at Craig when he shut a book suddenly. He put it back so quickly it was like it was on fire. She chuckled a little bit. What on earth could he have seen. She was going to ask for him to keep an eye out for anything involving weather magic, but he also seemed to be looking for something in particular.
She pursed her lips in frustration. This section was so disorganized how were they supposed to find anything. Emily had just reached to skim through another book when she felt a pull. It was similar to the pull she felt at the fairy circle. It drew her towards a book and she couldn’t resist the desire to look at it. The pull was so delicious and the minute she touched the book she heard all the whispered promises of powers. She just had to read a spell and it would all be hers. She couldn’t resist the urge, but she had enough control that she realized she should share with Craig. He was here too.
“Hey Craig, come here, check this out.”
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“Huh?” Craig looked up from his book and over at Emily. He shut the book he had open in his hands and put it back on the shelf. He wasn’t sure how, but he had a feeling that she had come across something pretty powerful. He could even feel it as he approached. “What is that?” All of his interest and attention were right there on the book she was holding. He moved around her so he was able to look over her shoulder at it. There was a definite pull. The moment his eyes caught the first word of an emboldened section of the page, his lips were moving to make the sound, without any conscious thought on Craig’s part.
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Emily shook her head, “I don’t know. It’s almost as if it called to me, don’t you feel it. This has power, imagine it...all this power could be ours. We would have so much control, we could shape the world to be like we want it to be. Just imagine it Craig.” Now those thoughts weren’t normally Emily’s. Thoughts like that were dark and dangerous. Something else was making her say these things, making her want these things. Her eyes went back to the book as Craig did. She saw the first word and in unison the two began to recite aloud.
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They started in English, the two witches chanting in unison. “Blessed be this place and more blessed still this tower, a bloody, arrogant power rose out of the race… In mockery, I have set a powerful emblem up, and sing it rhyme upon rhyme, in mockery of a time, half dead at the top…”
But as they spoke, the words seemed to run away with them. The language changed into something half-forgotten and ancient, in words that held infinitely more power. Whispers seemed to join them, coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. They couldn’t stop. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t stop.
“...És a mély árnyékok meghódítani a nap, és az üvöltő farkasok felfalják a világot!”
The book seemed to hold its breath. And then, an unseen pulse throbbed into the world, using the book as its epicenter and knocking the two witches back. As it passed, the lights flickered briefly and the books rustled. Inside, nothing seemed to have happened.
Outside, a darkness had descended onto the Academy, the bright Friday afternoon turning into an avid, ferocious darkness. An unnatural night had fallen, a cold full moon on the horizon, larger than the moon had any right to be.
Somewhere, a wolf started howling. Ms. Menides stood at her window, surveying the grounds as best as she could, looking briefly surprised. Then she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.