LoverofGravity

     Dipper pulled the bookshelf far enough for them to squeeze through easily. A hallway slanted downwards away from them and into darkness as it turned sharply to the right. Wendy activated the dim setting on her flashlight and held it low in front of them as they advanced down the musty corridor. They both realized it was unlikely anyone was still down here, but it was better to be safe just in case. The two explorers hugged the right side of the wall and moved as quietly as possible to the corner at the end. It was apparent that this was probably part of an old storage area or study fallen out of use from the original library.  Dipper borrowed Wendy’s light after taking a quick peek into the dimly lit corridor around the corner. He took another peek with the light, confirming his suspicion that the hall terminated in a door not too far ahead. He gestured Wendy forward and they both noticed natural yellow light creeping onto the floor in front of them from underneath the door. Wendy approached the door and put her ear to the carved paneling. Hearing nothing, she shook her head at Dipper who immediately took a look through the key hole.

     “I can’t see much but I think it’s empty” he whispered to his redheaded comrade. She nodded, and Dipper tried the knob. It was locked. Luckily, he had prepared for this stakeout thoroughly; he unslung his backpack and retrieved a few simple lock picking tools. After a short manipulation of the tumblers in the old lock, he had it open. Unfortunately, the task had caused more noise than he intended in the silent lair. The pair knew anyone on the other side would know they were coming. All the same, they nudged the door open as quietly as possible. Thankfully they were greeted by only inanimate objects on the other side. The adventurers breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at each other. Before them lay a miniature lair with all of the necessities required for a meeting of the Society of the Blind Eye.

       The room was relatively small for its purpose. On the right lay a table with books and documents strewn over its surface. Next to that was a bookshelf with more books and a few empty shelves. Over the table hung an ominous painting of a stern faced Society member whose eyes and brow where hidden by the signature red hood. He wore a vaguely masonic chain around his shoulders which bore many symbols of the Blind Eye in different incarnations, and he held up one hand in what appeared to be a sign or greeting of the order. In the center of the room stood an old barber’s chair upholstered in blood red cloth. It was plainly obvious that this chair was intended for mind erasures. Above that hung a candle chandler which probably provided ominous lighting for ceremonies. The left wall interrupted the wood paneling and wall paper that adorned the rest of the room; it bore naturally tan bricks with a recess flanked by mahogany shelves. Inside the recess sat a small stand and TV screen intended to play stored memories; the shelves bore scores of memory tubes in perfect order, glaring in the dim yellow lights illuminating the room. There was a small safe in the back left corner next to one of the memory tube shelves; aside from that there were only minor pieces of furniture and Blind Eye memorabilia and insignias.

       Our intrepid explorers lowered their guard since they had the room to themselves and there were no other obvious doors or entrances other than the one they came in from. Immediately they checked the memory tubes for names, and, to their relief, every tube had a blank label. Wendy stuck a tube into the projector to be sure, and it brought up only static. It appeared the Society had yet to abduct anyone at West Coast Tech. With this established, Dipper moved over to the table and began skimming the documents. All of the books and most of the papers were inconsequential; however, he did find one pamphlet entitled “MANIFESTO OF THE RESURRECTED SOCIETY OF THE BLIND EYE” and an encoded letter. “WENDY! I found something!” he exclaimed with excitement. “It looks like some sort of mission statement. There’s also some code on this paper that looks important.”  Wendy moved away from the safe she had been examining and rushed over to the table. “What does it say, Dip?”

Dipper ran his fingers over the cipher. “I’ll have to take a picture and decode it later. I can read this pamphlet though,” he paused and took a breath.

“Manifesto…Society of the Blind eye.

     Brothers, this order was founded on noble principles: innocence, fraternity, protection. We must uphold this tradition of honor in our time. Like a phoenix from the ashes, we arose once more from the chaos of the Demon. It is our destiny to protect humanity from the insanity that abounds at the cracks in our dimension. We must protect our people from themselves. Ignorance of the monsters scratching at our windows is the only sure method to secure bliss amongst the populace. We have always believed this, but, now, we are called to an even higher mission. The Demon whose name shan’t be spoken nearly succeeded in conquering our dimension and destroying life as we know it. His near success can be attributed to our order’s temporary destruction mere weeks before his emergence. Even though he was cast from this dimension in defeat, we now know he was able to gain entrance into our realm through the manipulation of thoughts and dreams in an ethereal form. Once again, he only exists in the mind. This fact is crucial to his permanent defeat. The only way to ensure the Demon never returns is to erase all memory of him from all of humanity. Fortunately, only the residents of Gravity Falls knew of his existence other than a few token visitors. The mayor has forbade those who experienced the Demon’s terror from speaking of it. This makes our mission all the easier. The final victory lies in erasing every last scrap of the Demon from everyone’s minds. We shall seek out the few who have left Gravity Falls since the event; then, we shall systematically free each resident of the town from the Demon. Once this is done, humanity’s victory shall culminate when we as an order free our own minds from the Demon…”

      Wendy let out a long whistle. “That’s really heavy dude.” Dipper nodded, concerned. “You said it…let’s get out of here after I take a picture of this code. There’s nothing else we can do in here. That safe is beyond my skills.” Wendy looked around once last time in case the pair missed something. “Yeah. I think we are done here.” Dipper snapped a picture of the ciphered letter before they left:

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It had been two weeks since the Pines and their friends had met at Northside Diner. Like everyone else, Dipper had played off Blind Ivan's presence that night, but, recently, he couldn't help but dwell on the fact. He was the only tangible lead other than the spray painted symbol on the library. However, a week of digging brought up nothing on either a "Blind Ivan" or "T. McBumbersnazzle" in the area. They had to take the only other lead.

As a result, Wendy and Dipper met the last four nights on the roof of the engineering building across the street from the library for a stake out. For the first two nights, they watched from 9 pm to 1 am. Last night and tonight they planned to watch from 1 am to 4 am. It was really tough on their sleep schedules, but something had to give. Every night had played out about the same so far. Dipper and Wendy watched the library and would chat casually while tossing rocks or kicking the broken slate shingles across the roof. "This is starting to get hopeless," Dipper said softly, tossing a broken piece of slate. Wendy took a moment to reply, choosing her words carefully, "Don't worry Dip, we'll figure out what these jerks are up to. Even if this doesn't work." She brushed a stray hair behind her ear and grinned. It was that cool, reassuring grin that so often greeted Dipper in the midst of uncertainty. It worked every time, and they both knew it. Dipper couldn't help but smile back. "Thanks Wendy, you always seem to know what to say." She placed a friendly hand on his shoulder as she spoke. "No problem. I've always got your back bud."

They both grew quiet as they returned their gaze to the library. A cold breeze added to the chilled air and Wendy unconsciously scooted a bit closer to Dipper, who pretended to not notice. His eyes stayed on the library but his thoughts had been only on Wendy for the last few minutes. It took him several more minutes to work up the courage to speak. He placed his hand on top of Wendy's and looked earnestly at her, "I can't tell you how much I appreciate you doing this with me...It means alot." Wendy's heart dropped when his warm hand touched hers; she wasn't sure what this feeling was. She turned her hand over and clasped his with a smile. "I told ya Dip, I'm here for you." Dipper was freaking out inside, he had no idea how to respond. He had never held hands with Wendy before, it was like the beginning of a dream. He defaulted to a smile and turned his gaze back to the library.

They sat this way for several minutes when Wendy suddenly pulled her hand free and pointed. "There!" She exclaimed in an excited whisper. Instantly they both slid on to their stomachs, just peaking over the eve of the flat topped roof. The figure she pointed at was dressed in a trench coat and had a red hood poking from his collar. "2:28! Write that down!," Dipper whispered, "He's going in!" Over the course of the next 10 minutes, three other figures arrived in similar attire and looked over their shoulders as they entered the library. Dipper looked at Wendy, "Should we go in?" She frowned thoughtfully, "I don't think so, at least not yet, not without backup..." Dipper nodded, "You're right. Let’s wait and see what happens." There was no sign of life until 3:45 am; all four figures left the building simultaneously, each taking a separate path. Dipper nodded at Wendy, "Let’s go!" They slid down to the window they had used to access the roof and, in a few minutes, were walking into the library.

Wendy followed behind Dipper, who was walking with purpose. "What are we looking for? Do you think they left something in here?" Dipper replied as he climbed over the librarian's counter, "No need to look; we'll check the security footage." They entered the office and found a monitor running several different current feeds. Dipper played it back as Wendy watched over his shoulder, smiling at his confidence. The first feed showed each figure entering the stairwell and it took several tries for Dipper to find the right feed for the floor they went to. It was the basement. "Of course," he thought. A few tries later and he found that each figure had gone to a certain bookshelf and pulled on a particular book. The book activated a mechanism which allowed the shelf to swing like a door, revealing a passage. Each one disappeared and secured the shelf behind them. At 3:42 am, the shelf reopened from the inside and the four figures appeared together. One of them was just putting on his coat as he exited the passage; there was no mistake, even through blurry black-and-white security footage, that he was clad in the distinctive robes of the Society of the Blind Eye. All of them still had their hoods pulled low over their brows, obscuring their features.

Wendy was already scrolling through her phone when it chimed. She had received a text from Dipper, “Hey Wen, Ford sounded really worried when I called. He’s coming down tmw night to help us sort it out. We are meeting at Northside Diner at 7. U in?” She smiled as the feeling of anticipation and mystery rekindled in her mind. She had tried to keep the recent events surrounding the Blind Eye in the back of her mind. She typed, “I’ll be there Dip!” and hit send.

The next morning, Stanford excused himself from breakfast in the kitchen of the Mystery Shack and beckoned Stanley to join him as he left. Soos shrugged at his Abuelita and continued eating. Ford gestured his twin towards the lab beneath the shack and followed him down. Stanley leaned against a broken panel of equipment as Ford began flipping through various books. "Stanley, we have a serious problem on our hands. The Society of the Blind Eye is back." Stanley stood up and seemed unimpressed, "The who now?" Ford sighed and rolled his eyes, "The secret cult that used Fiddleford's memory gun on the townspeople...the gun we used to defeat Bill...?" It clicked in Stanley's mind, and he smiled as he scratched his head, "Oh, right." Ford continued, "Anyway, they are a serious threat. Dipper believes he has encountered them at West Coast Tech and has asked for my assistance. Fiddleford and I are going down to discuss the matter in person, tonight. You are welcome to come with us. You may be very useful in case we run into anything, and I'm sure you'd like to visit Dipper. However, you can't speak to anyone about this; we don't know who we can trust!" Stanley laughed, "Sure! I'd love to visit the twerp!"

Dipper found Wendy, Fiddleford McGucket, and his two Grunkles already chatting and laughing at Northside Diner just off campus. They had already ordered him a Pitt Cola and greeted him cheerfully as he approached the table. He retuned their smiles and wearily took a seat. The usual small talk and catching up followed until they had ordered their food. As the waitress left, Dipper and Ford exchanged a serious glance and each of them grew more stern-faced. Ford began the conversation, “We’ve all had a good time catching up on the last few months, but it is time we get down to business.” Everyone grew silent and attentive as Ford spoke. “Dipper, tell us what has happened so far, and what you have learned. Fiddleford might be able to fill in some of our questions, and we can all extrapolate the data.”

Dipper related everything to the group as he had to Wendy and added what little conjecture he had come up with since. “That’s all I have. I haven’t found anything on the Society outside of Gravity Falls, and I can’t find any motivations they may have for being here other than targeting Wendy and I along with any other previous residents of Gravity Falls that may be here. However, we destroyed the memory gun; this makes things even murkier.” Ford looked to McGucket, who had been sitting quietly and pondering the conversation without interjection. “Fiddleford, do you have any clue as to why the Blind Eye could be here? Do you remember if there were multiple chapters?” Fiddleford looked to one side and scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I reckon there was only the one chapter as far as I can remember. That doesn’t mean they didn’t found more after I left. As far as the memory gun is concerned, they could have made more from my prototype. It wasn’t too terribly complicated, but it would take some skill.” After a pause, Wendy sat up and interjected, “I don’t understand how they are still around though; we wiped the group’s memory that day in the museum.”

Everyone turned suddenly as a microphone buzzed on a small stage in the corner of the diner. A pale, bald-headed man with a banjo spoke into the mic. “Hello ladies and gents! My name is toot-toot McBumbersnazzle and I am here to provide you with some entertainment tonight!” He still bore the tattoos on his skull, most of them hidden by a fedora he was wearing. He began a lighthearted but quiet tune on his banjo as the group turned back to their table. Wendy pointed excitedly “See! That’s Blind Ivan right there. Mabel told him that McBumbersnazzle stuff after we wiped his mind!” Ford tapped his glass with a fork, “Hmm…Odd, very odd. If Blind Ivan’s memory is truly gone, the others’ memories should still be wiped as well. I can only guess that we are dealing with another chapter.” Dipper added to his thought, “Or one of the old members found their memory tube under the museum?” Ford shook his head, “Unlikely Dipper, I had Mabel and Soos show me the Society’s old lair. They said it was just as you left it five years ago.” Everyone paused as the food arrived. Once they were alone again, Dipper recapped, “So we are dealing with a different chapter of the Blind Eye who may or may not have a memory gun and are, for some reason, here instead of in Gravity Falls?” Fiddleford wiped his mouth with a napkin, “It would appear so, Dipper. Now we must find out why they are here. I assume there aren’t a lot of anomalies here; therefore, they shouldn’t have a reason to be somewhere like this.”