“The white people are at it again, Professor King.” Hiraya deadpanned as soon as she found her favorite librarian.

Professor Isagani King burst into laughter, interrupting the miniature tutoring he’d been giving a student. “Apologies. Do you think you understand the material now? I can come back to help later if you need it.” He crooned softly to the student he’d been with before Hiraya entered. Hiraya picked at her dark purple uniform sweater as she waited.

“I think I’ve got it now! Thank you, Professor King. Can you check my work later?” The student asked with a shy smile.

“Of course. Give me just a moment.” With that, the Professor strode over to Hiraya with a soft smile. “Hello, dear. That was certainly quite the entrance, wasn’t it?” His voice was teasing and fond, ducking down a little to talk to her on her level. Hiraya was tall, but Professor King towered over most people.

Professor King always made time for her, but she knew she needed to keep this brief, if only to avoid the glares from her fellow students. He was, after all, beloved by all students in the University. He had an innate ability to successfully teach anyone at breakneck speed, regardless of the student’s academic struggle or learning style. Not to mention he had an encyclopedic knowledge of everything in his library and knew exactly where everything was. He was practically the patron saint of nerds and terrible students alike. Half the school had a crush on him, and many students pretended to be terrible students just to have fifteen minutes alone to listen to him. Not that the other Professors were much better.

Hiraya was not in the wide category of people who wanted to sleep with the head librarian, but she did care deeply for and trusted him for a different reason. That being the fact that they were both Filipino in a majorly white school. He was extra kind to her because of their shared origins, especially because she was one of the only people in the school who could speak Tagalong.

Which meant he was one of the only people she could trust to go to when things started taking a turn for the strange. 

Recently, the investors in the university had been installing strange statues of snakes and offering a concerning amount of classes on dream theory. Hiraya had been working to figure out the connection between those two subjects alongside the steady strange uptick in students acquiring narcolepsy with no apparent cause. The school had been brushing the cases of sudden narcolepsy as simply student exhaustion, too, which made it more suspicious.

“I think I’ve found a link between everything, but I need extra research materials.” Hiraya told Professor King. “I interviewed all the students, and though not all of them took the new classes, they all reported dreams of staircases.”

“Hm… yes, I believe the occult section has some books that might relate to what you’re talking about. It might also be good to talk to the occult club, too. Though I’d warn you to be safe doing so.” Professor King adjusted his yellow raincoat as he started walking towards where they needed to go. “They are… enthusiastic.”

The King Library and Archive took up two entire city blocks and was five floors tall, was yet it still seemed so much bigger on the inside. It was easy to get lost here, though Professor King was very good at guiding wayward students out, as were his assistant librarians, Mercy and Quail. They even printed out maps of the library and it’s sections to leave at the front door, with more maps inside periodically. The architecture of the library was spacious and full of gothic carved columns of marble and dark wood, some depicting human figures in elegant flowing cloaks and robes— it was almost more like a place of worship than a library. It even featured dark iron chandeliers, with golden candles.

There were all sorts of secret hidden areas here in the library, from cozy reading alcoves to cluttered private study rooms, to even a few small kitchenettes stocked with tea and coffee scattered about the floors.

If Hiraya wasn’t always on the go because of her investigative journalism, she could spend an eternity here, reading everything. But right now she had a mission.

Following Professor King up to the fourth floor in the upper right corner, there was the occult section, which took up a decent chunk of the intimidatingly huge floor plan. Professor King walked automatically to a section with a purple bookcase, right next to one with a yellow bookcase. “Start here.” He advised, gesturing to the books on the purple bookshelf.

The bookshelf was taller than even the giant Professor King. She had a lot to go through.

—

It was Mercy that came to check up on her several hours later, finding her buried in books with a golden candlestick burning besides her. Mercy tilted her head at the giant pile of books that concealed her friend, brushing dust from old books off her long brownish-yellow plaid dress before quietly walking around the table and behind Hiraya, ankle boots making muted clicks on worn carpet. 

“Hm?” The assistant librarian tapped on her shoulder, pendant necklace lightly bumping against Hiraya’s head as Mercy signed a question in ASL.

“The school is making dark deals with eldritch gods, Mercy.” Hiraya griped, not looking up from her current book. She started pointing at the large stack of books she’d already read. “Snakes, dreams, narcolepsy— it all relates back to the Dream Witch. She promises power beyond imagination, but to take the deal is to become her puppet. But why here? Yes, she targets scholars, but with all the changes the school is making for her, she’s making quite a bit of effort for a random university. We’re prestigious and Ivy League, yes, but we’re not the biggest or the most powerful. Why not Harvard or Princeton?” Hiraya rubs her cheeks, trying to think.

Mercy smiles gently, giggling softly. ‘Maybe we have something she wants?’ She signs. ‘Croasca is older than the United States. It used to be its own miniature kingdom. Maybe there’s something here that we don’t even know about, from long before the European invasions. Or maybe there’s a meaning we’ve forgotten that only a Goddess is old enough to remember.’ She suggested, hands moving fast with theories. Once she was done, she swished her silky black braid back over her shoulder, showing off the gill-like tattoos on her neck. There was a reason she was chosen to be an assistant librarian. She wasn’t as great at teaching as Professor King, especially since most people didn’t understand sign, but she was wonderful at brainstorming.

“So history of the university… I can work with that.” Hiraya nods, getting up and tossing her dark leather messenger bag onto her shoulder. “Thanks, Mercy. I’m off to the history club. Say hi to Quail for me.”

Mercy cheerfully waved her off, dark nails glinting in the candlelight.

—

For a history club, the students were quite unruly, or maybe it was an exception because it was trivia night. Then again, Hiraya swore they seemed to have a trivia night every time the club met. Either way, the small room was crawling with people piled on couches, playing a history focused version of Jeopardy on a projector. Most everyone has shed their uniform jackets and sweaters, preferring their button ups and suspenders in the warm room. Every time someone got a question wrong the students threw small yellow hacky sacks shaped like the school mascot at the loser. It might be fun to play along if Hiraya wasn’t worried about the rich stockholders in the school selling all the students’ souls to a goddess whose signature move is eating people to gain their traits.

She finds the leader watching from afar, making sure their club members don’t get too out of hand. They’ve got their dark purple uniform jacket tied around their waist, glasses slipping down their nose as they nod along whenever a question is answered correctly. “Liwei Davies?” She asks.

“That’s me. You’re from the investigative journalism track, right? You’re wearing the pin.” They greet with a solemn nod, pointing at the golden eye pin she wears. “Should I be worried? I’m pretty sure none of have committed crimes…”

Hiraya laughs a little. “Well, you didn’t do anything, no. I’m looking to learn about the school’s history, or just the city in general.”

Liwei lights up. “Oh! Well, that’s easy. You see, Croasca was once a very small kingdom in North America, ruled by a king, far before colonialism took over. There’s contrasting sources on if he was a mad king or a benevolent one. However, Croasca was not recognized as an ancient kingdom, despite hundreds of years of protests, until the late 1990s because of reasons that are basically Eurocentric views and eugenics but no one wants to call it that. Croasca University—“

“Go Octopi!” Several students playing Jeopardy automatically piped up.

“—Was in existence as a place of learning and culture for everyone, but it wasn’t called that back then, it was just the place in Croasca where people learned folk medicine. It was established as an actual university and historical place of culture in the early 1800s, and since then has been key in storing knowledge of many dying cultures and keeping them alive.” Liwei finished.

“Ironic.” Hiraya mumbled.

Liwei snorted. “You’re telling me.”

“Does… the school have any connection to the occult?” She asked carefully.

Liwei groaned. “Yes, but the occult club won’t shut up about it. Like yes, our school’s founder was essentially a cultist who worshipped the King of Croasca like a god, but he was a very good person who cared dearly about establishing shelters for marginalized groups and reteaching culture. The school’s fallen a bit to the wayside in the last 20 years, yes, but it was started with the best of intentions and helped a lot of people.”

King… god… yellow… octopi…

“Thanks for your time!” Hiraya books it back to the library.

—

“Quail, I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole.” Hiraya greeted as she was once again checked on after hours of reading in the library, this time from the yellow shelf.

“I’m not helping you out of it. Go get Isagani to drag you out.” Quail snarked, picking up the stack of books she’d already read. The metal bobbles on the chains on his pants clinked together like wind chimes as he hefted the books up, braced against his yellow uniform sweater vest.

“Can I bounce one question off you, though? You used to be in the occult club.” Hiraya pleaded.

Quail blew curly white hair out of his face, agitated. “Make it quick.”

“I’ve been researching the King of Croasca, and found a link to him being the mad god known as the King in Yellow from occult lore. It’s clear that this city is a holy place for him, which makes it a target for his enemies… But there’s so much contrasting evidence for him. Many works say that he’s entropy incarnate, a pure mindless force of nature, but in other works he’s downright benevolent, especially the very first one where he’s given a name. I’m trying to figure out which is the correct viewpoint of him.”

Quail shrugged. “Why not both? Even forces of nature play favorites. That’s why we have alpha predators and animals that get bullied to shit by nature. Gravity is most definitely a cat lover, after all, and has a special hatred for turtles.”

“You’ve got a point… but that doesn’t tell me if the Dream Witch trying to take over the school is a good thing or a bad thing.” Hiraya sighed.

She heard a familiar chuckle, and saw Professor King, putting a cup of masala chai in front of her. “That,” The head librarian purred, “depends on whether you’ve been cursed or blessed.”