The scene starts with a lively secondhand book fair in Foothill Town, where various Night Raven College students, (Sebek, Malleus, Riddle, Trey, Azul, Jade, Vil, Epel, Jamil, Leona, Idia) and the Prefect (You) are gathered. When Grim opens a bizarrely bound magical book featuring an ornate mirror, a violet vacuum pulls the entire group into the surreal Hinterlands. Deprived of their working magical pens, the group encounters Skully again before tumbling through a pumpkin-carved door in a giant tree that drops them straight into Halloween Town.

Upon arrival, they meet a ghostly youth named Skully J. Graves, whose eccentric behavior and dramatic greetings immediately spark suspicion and distrust among wary students like Sebek and Jamil. The group must navigate the strange rules of this unfamiliar dimension while trying to figure out how to return home.