Jasper was trying to take in as much of the dim library he could. It wasn’t huge and had an abysmal air, but everything within these walls seemed important through the act of sublimed secrecy, if nothing else.

Four rows of books stretched out slightly on one side, and another four rows a bit longer on the other past the entry desk. Everything was six shelves high, no more, no less. Several books at a glance appeared to be ancient.

Jiro was standing in the approximate center of the space, supposedly searching with his ‘spores.’ Cody had bolted off immediately, and was currently shuffling through the third row on the left side.

The air was clean in a stale way, as if no good memories existed in such a space. Every footstep was hard and concise, pressing the cold ground in through Jasper’s feet. He was at the place he needed to be, but now all he wanted was to get out.

He had walked up to the first shelf to look around, and was grazing the titles of random books. Mysteries of the Wormhole. The Secret History of Dragon-Tier. Trinkets and Troubles— This one wasn’t pushed into the shelf all the way.

Jasper picked it up. It had a fake gold binding and a chalice on the front. How original.

He opened it up to a page that was titled, The False Diviner’s Rod, and read some of the text.

This artifact became particularly useful in the spread of many world religions and cults over the millennia. It’s last known use before being seized by the Council was with the Church of Sci—

Jasper skipped through the historical stuff.

The rod amplifies the negative emotion of ignorance, preventing proper thought and making people susceptible to broad lies and false rule-heads. This is done when the user (I.e. cult leader, the pope, etc.) feeds the rod energy while speaking to many people—

Jasper immediately flipped to the front to find the table of contents, feeling the thud of the back cover on his palm. His eyes widened at the pages.

Was this a catalogue and history of every artifact? It was so specific! And it definitely had information Jasper would otherwise never come across. Possibly artifacts that someone didn’t want others to know existed.

It was in alphabetical order. He started flipping through the pages the moment he found his target. What were those people saying earlier about an iron chess set?

Here it was! Jasper yanked out his phone and went to take a picture of its two-page spread. His fingers were fumbling to find a good distance and steady hold for the picture. He was shaking just a bit, or maybe excessively. Who was judging?

The moment he snapped his shot, all visual information went to the void. After a moment of pale shock, Jasper realized he could see the dim light of his phone’s camera screen, showing a black room in front of it. Every light in the library had shut off.

He instantly lost his breath as his chest tightened, and every trigger in his brain was pounding in toward itself. He began feeling around for the empty slot in the bookshelf. He had to put this book back, especially if it were recently used! Someone here might go looking for it, and Jasper couldn’t incriminate himself!

He barely managed to find the slot and slide the book back in, barely realizing… did he actually get the picture? Could he put his flash on and…

Fuck, Jasper was terrified being here! He couldn’t do this anymore! Was Cody’s spell still hiding his energy? Would his phone light give them away? Was someone in here, turning the lights off and wandering the library near them, readying to…

If they were discovered, and someone were to kill them, capture them, torture… two shivers of lightning straightened Jasper’s back, his own nerves getting the better of him. He grasped down on the bookshelf and twisted, setting his back against it. One cold wood shelf knocked on his spine as he failed at righting himself, and he made a grunt of discomfort. His legs were starting to feel queasy.

If he called out— if any of them did— would they be giving themselves away? Tiny springs raised the hairs along Jasper’s arms and legs, a sense of a giant hammer sweeping all the minute security he had left away from him.

They were in someone else’s space. Someone who wasn’t good, who might prefer Jasper not breathe or exist. Jasper’s fingers ran down the bookshelf, cardboard and leathery surfaces pulling him down as his elbow knocked on another shelf.

He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t—

“My, my. Did we do something bad?” A ghostly two-layered voice said over his head.

Jasper felt like a scream was stolen from his throat as he silently lost the rest of his weight against the bookcase behind him, knees buckling. All he could make out was a dark miasma atop him, so similar to the pitch-blackness of the room it was almost indiscernible.

It was going to smother him, tear him apart, infect his mind and hold him here. He could feel the iniquitous desires of what loomed over him.

Wherever he went, Jasper was hopeless. Now was no different. He couldn’t even bring his arms up to help himself. He sat against hidden knowledge in a loveless place, vision taken away from him.

“Did you think you would get away with—”

“Frie ao smiet vi!” Cody’s ruffled voice interjected, his hands lighting ablaze and clasping flames over the creature above Jasper.

But before those flames had erupted, Jasper had already seen it. Those glowing pinkish-red eyes, rushing in from the side. A faint glow that gave Jasper a moment of clarity and confidence.

What Jasper had done was unintentionally create an entity from his own fear.

And fear was always weakest to the person who created it. Jasper had to collect himself and turn it around. He switched his knees over so he could move again.

Jasper saw the loose miasma shooting out and writhing around Cody’s struggled hold. The entity seemed the size of a beach-ball, maybe slightly bigger. Cody and Jasper could handle a hound-class entity, even in the dark. Jasper needed to regain himself.

“Feembog a nhyway o.” Jasper managed to get out, having rehearsed this spell in class to death. Now, he was thankful for it— rehearsal created second nature, an autopilot that could still fire off against fear. One chant from Jasper was all it took to freeze the entity solid in midair. The stillness incantation took direct and clear focus to reach, but the entity was so close to him that he had felt the fire on Cody’s hands start to singe his hair.

Cody was letting the fire fizzle out, though, and with it went Jasper’s brief glimpses of the weird Visigoth Gastly.

And all that was left were the faint glows of Cody’s eyes. And it was a glow— like the miasma from a sprite. This was odd, because Jasper thought he remembered it wafting last time. And also much brighter in comparison.

Suddenly, he had the realization that Cody himself was hiding it— and that here, in the pitch black, he probably hadn’t known his eyes were still letting out a soft glow.

“Cody, it won’t move.” Jasper whispered. “You can step back so I can kill it.”

A family spell would do the trick nicely. Cody’s eyes floated aside, and Jasper incanted words he’d been practicing a lot as of late.

“Erek en akwae, ZON.” From point blank range, Jasper drew the dagger from his belt and thrusted it into the entity. Little bits of electricity formed, converged and scattered around the fear creature. It gave a piercing shriek as its already hazy miasma spread out into nothingness. Jasper heard its core fall to the ground, over in an instant.

Normally the electricity was part of a honing mechanism in this spell, and the dagger was thrown much longer distances. It would follow a focused current. Without far to fly, nearby targets faced a greater discharge.

It was a special tribute of Jasper’s daggers that helped enhance Jasper’s magic. They were family heirlooms and family incantations— many people had individualized things like this that they practiced. Some magics worked well with one’s mion imprint, others didn’t. It was a mixture of genetics, cores infused, and other things the Council was still researching.

Jasper could hear Cody picking something off the ground a few paces away— books he’d dropped before coming to help Jasper.

Jasper could faintly find the fear entity’s core with his entity vision, and he quickly stuffed it into his coat pocket.

“No one else has walked in here.” Cody whispered. “I’m beginning to think the lights meant everyone went home, except for whatever that was.”

“That was entirely me.” Jasper was embarrassed, but he didn’t want to put Cody more on edge. “My own fear entity. But… I’m fine now.”

Cody was looking at Jasper, as if assessing something. For a brief moment he didn’t say anything, and Jasper just looked back at him. 

Suddenly his eyes appeared to phase backward. “You…”

“What is it?” Jasper was starting to freak out again.

“You’re looking right into my eyes.” Cody said, tense. “How are you… how would…”

Oh, shit. Jasper was doing that. And that also meant… “You can see in pitch black?” Jasper asked.

Jasper was certain he could hear the color draining from Cody’s face within the man’s voice. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”

Jasper dealt with his own fear entity literal seconds ago, he wasn’t going to deal with his own friend scaring him too. Nope. He’d take the bullhorns approach.

Jasper held out his hand. “Cody, we can talk about it later. Take my hand, let’s find Jiro and you can lead me the hell out of here before I make a fucking anxiety entity this time.”

Cody was speechless. Jasper hoped his mouth was open in a stupor, or something. That would’ve been a sight.

Regardless, there wasn’t time, because Jiro was already approaching them.

“Heroes! I hath thy book! Hyup!” Jiro jumped all the way onto Jasper’s shoulder, briefly startling him. Jiro was much heavier with a book, and it happened way too fast considering Jasper couldn’t see any of it happening. Hopefully it was Jiro on his shoulder, and not… something else…

“Away, devotedeth of knights! Back to thy motherland!” Yep, it was definitely Jiro.

And what, was Jasper a horse now? Jiro was even balancing the book on top of Jasper’s head, holding it there in order to not directly carry it.

Jasper would’ve sighed if Cody hadn’t yanked his still outstretched wrist. “Gentle!” Jasper said, running along. “I don’t have the same muscles as you!”

Jasper was pulled to the door.

“We should go invisible to be safe.” Cody said flatly.

Jasper incantedly obliged, wanting desperately to be out of this place. Cody re-incanted to hide their energy, and Jiro spored their way through the doorway once more.

Upon exiting, Cody paused for a moment. Jasper felt a cold and damp air from a vent passing goosebumps over his arm. Cody's grip softened for a moment, then re-grabbed closer to Jasper's hand and continued pulling him along.

There had been no voices left in these halls. If they were the only ones here… were they actually throwing away an opportunity by leaving? There were thousands of books they might never see again.

Jasper supposed it didn't matter, because without knowledge of, ‘opportunity-for-what,’ they wouldn't know where to look. They didn't know anything about the people here, or what knowledge they themselves might need in the future. They had what was important for the now, and Jasper had to accept that as enough.

They hurried back the way they came with no issue. Once they made it inside the elevator, Jasper was incredibly shocked at how easy everything ended up being. He was sure there was going to be some altercation (fighting his own entity didn’t count).

The elevator doors closed, and Jasper’s heart froze. He tried blurring through stressful situations, so due to such mild escape-induced panic-anticipations, he hadn't noticed it— Cody's hand pulling him had gradually shifted down to Jasper’s own hand. They were engaged in… hand holding…

Jasper hit the 1F button with his other hand, wondering when Cody was going to initiate efforts to let go. Jasper released the invisibility incantation and sneaked a side glance.