Conspiracy Files of Brightvale University #1

Still reading? Good. You’re one of the smart ones here.

I’ll let you in on a secret: Brightvale University is hiding something. Many somethings. Don’t let the administration fool you—and believe me, they’ll do so by any means necessary. This place has secrets. Big secrets. Dangerous secrets. All hidden under the guise of a normal learning institution.

Information can no longer be spread through the whispers of terrified students. The community has a right to know. And before you ask, no, I cannot tell you my name. Just know that I am a friend.

The First Secret: where everything began.

One-hundred or so years ago, the university grounds had been owned by a wealthy family of entrepreneurs. They lived within their sheltered mansion home for decades, rarely interacting with those outside of their social circle. Wondering what this has to do with anything? Let me tell you. About fifty years ago, the Vandersteed family sold their estate to the Brightvale Educational Fund. It had been sold in a rush, a span of three days, at the cost of a million points—a paltry sum given the multi-millions invested in the land. It seemed like an unpassable deal, even though the Educational Committee had pondered about the binding silence agreement.

Silence about what, you might ask? The tunnels.

“Tunnels, smunels,” I can hear you thinking, as you begin to wonder what compelled you to pick up this article. Written completely in invisible ink. So yes, my ever patient reader, tunnels. And without the disappearances four years ago, they might have remained a secret, too.

Three senior ancient studies majors had been last seen on the Third day of Celebrating around a stand of four, equidistant pine trees, planted exactly 156.5 meters from the entrance to the Duke Hagris Memorial Library. A Puppyblew trained to track their scents lead a group of officers to the site. If not for the chemical sampling of the soil around the area, we might never have learned about the trap door. Or the toxic levels of Sophixium, Gormognide, and Slothite found lurking only centimeters below the soil.

Back to the students. Upon tugging a buried latch, a secret tunnel opened underground. Did I say tunnel? I meant to write labyrinth. I always get those two things mixed up, it happens. But like I was saying, the day the students disappeared, three highly-trained, Tyvek-suited search-and-rescue team members dropped into the maze to find the missing trio. About a mile in, their communication gear cut out. They were never found. No one else was permitted to enter. Thirty days later, they filled the entrance with cement and had the location decontaminated. Curious students were redirected to their studies. Some were threatened with academic probation. It was a mess, a near-breach of all they meant to keep hidden.

The place is crawling with security cameras, don’t even try to sneak there. You will be caught.

The missing students turned up. Twenty-nine days and three hours after the search and rescue team were lost, three bewildered Neopians came shambling out of the tunnel right before it had been sealed up for good. None of them could remember what happened, how many days had passed, and why thinking made their brain hurt.

But I digress. If you’re wondering what could be under the school grounds, hidden in a mesh of narrow, winding paths, look no further. Thankfully, some creatures are well attuned to digging through solid cement. Fit them with modified claws and they drill through the ground even faster. I did not choose the original site—that would be foolhardy. There are other ways to see a tunnel, you just need to know the right sources.

It looked like a normal tunnel, full of stalactites, narrow crawl spaces, and a barricaded metal door with pulsing green light. (I’m assuming it was green, but it could have been magenta. I could not interpret the color well through her video feed). A miasma of smoke poured through the door as my associate continued her journey. But don't worry, I retrieved her collar camera.

I can hear you smacking your lips, wanting to know more, begging to know the true nature of these tunnels.

I cannot. Or, I cannot in the level of detail that you demand. There are limits to what I can share, and I do hope you understand this.

On an unrelated side note, watch the chemical inventory lists.

Each year, all chemistry and biology majors must pay a lab fee. Monetary allocation can be summed up into the following categories: replacement glassware, safety equipment, chemicals of various intensity, and 32mm x 42mm microchips. Despite student outcry, the microchips have yet to be used for a robotics or computer science course. In fact, they’ve never been used in BVU labs at all. Instead, according to Dean Itsowthar, the chips are reallocated towards “Virtutech,” the top sponsor of the school next to “AAVL,” provider of 56.4% of the school’s dining hall food.

There are a great number of secrets that the college hides, I can promise you that. And if the newspaper chooses to publish my future research, you will all be informed. If this is the last publication you ever see, I have been found out. They will all claim this article to be an elaborate hoax slipped into the pages of the otherwise mundane issue of the “Golden Quill.” So before I finish this article, perhaps the last article I ever write, let me state a few things:

Dean Green is not what he seems. Keep a close eye on him.

Have you ever wondered why the electrophoresis gels never solidify in lab room 211? Investigate it.

Never enter the basement in the Duke Hagris Memorial Library.

It is not coincidence that an adjunct disappears after every department meeting.

Never eat the Mystery Meat Sandwich.

If a letter is slipped under your dorm room door inviting you to a secret club meeting, a candy party, an undisclosed location, The Order’s Apprentices, Scholars for the Obelisk, or Da Brute Squad!! Don’t go. Never go. Even if the Seekers do offer tuition remission. How else do you think they recruit endless canon fodder for the never ending skirmishes?

There is a reason that Sociology Majors have been continuing the same project for twenty-three years. A reason the university president does not want you to know.

The upstairs art studio is haunted. By what, you ask? Some questions are better left unanswered.

Don’t go to the book club. The last tome they discussed had a face on it and was bound by tanned leather.

The floating, amorphous shapes that you can see from the observatory towers are not what you think they are.

Listen to the choir’s songs from last year’s winter concert. No, not forward, in reverse. Pay attention to the ghostly wail in the background.

Despite what the sources say, Hubrid Nox is still alive, and it is so terribly, terribly wrong.

Dnif het pmoupsuertecr nad pots ti.

Xandra’s Legion is strong here.

Trust no one. Mind Control Exists.

It is my hope that I might have the chance to elaborate on these findings of mine. If not, they found me.

Stay safe. Until next time.