The Moonweaver Sidestories- Raptyr's New Undertaking

“Alright Raptyr, today we are going to be unlocking one of the easier doors. I have to warn you, this place has many safeguards, its impossible to focus on both unlocking the doors and fighting some of the defences. If you aren’t alert at all times, you can easily die.” Aidan warned me in a foreboding tone. “If you arent prepared to face your own death for the sake of attaining knowledge, you should leave.”

I stood in the middle of a large library called the Atheneum. According to Rin and Aidan, the Atheneum housed the knowledge of the Forest attained through at least thousands of years. According to Aidan though, most of it was divided into sections, many of which had been sealed off for whatever reason either when or before the last age had ended… when the last Wardens died.

I looked around as I reaffirmed my purpose. I saw spiral bookcases levitating in midair, loaded up with books and possessing some kind of glyphs on them. They rotated slowly, though one had the ability to spin them manually if one was so inclined, or stop them. All in all, the place lived up to its name, it was a massive library filled with books detailing arcane secrets and theory. Though some of the books, as I had found once while investigating, detailed things as simple as cooking and making clothes.

“I wouldn’t call myself the scholarly type, ready to die for a few books.” I told him plainly, “You’ll have to forgive my lack of preparation, I’m afraid I can’t be bothered to become some martyr for this. I guess I’ll just have to avoid dying so my ignorant nature won’t come to any further light."

The wolverine looked at me with appraising eyes. He let out something that sounded like a quiet chuckle. I took a close look at the robe that covered most of his body. The robe had a hood attached which he had pulled up. The robe had designs all over it, three blue and black jackals who appeared to be siblings, caught my eye.. They had similar ears to Iggy Vincent and Mira and the pattern was one that the three siblings possessed as well. There was also a black fox with five tails and a blue phoenix. I couldn’t help but wonder if these people were family to him. I wondered if this was how the Wardens used to look.

“Brave words, hopefully you live up to them.” Aidan said slowly, almost cautiously. “This place has a remarkable ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. Meaning we shall quickly find if your remarks are mere bluster, or if you possess the potential for growth.”

I wanted to press him on what he meant by the last part of his statement but he turned away from me, heading towards one of the sections. As he lead me, I noticed certain glyph chains repeating, getting longer with each repetition. At first there was only a few, over a door, then further doors would possess the same ones with a few added on. I suspected they were some kind of markers to prevent those who took the time to learn them from getting lost or turned around too easily.

Aidan suddenly stopped in front of me. I nearly bumped into him, I was only really stopped by a large set of double doors that released a foreboding aura. It was as if whatever was contained behind them was dangerous. I suddenly began to regret my choice. We were surrounded by four statues on both sides. We would have to go a few yards back before we could turn back into the hallway we had gone through to get here that lead away from where most of the books seemed to be.

“Such is the foolish and reckless confidence of youth I suppose.” He commented towards me. “Thinking highly of yourselves until suddenly faced by the slightest obstacle. If you can’t even face the fear spell on this door, you won’t get far.”

“Don’t make me laugh, the door just caught me off guard. This is nothing.” I took a deep breath and calmed my nerves. The feeling was just an illusion, it wasn’t real. I won’t let myself be bested by some librarian. I wasn’t confident, but that didn’t matter, all I had to do was fake it for now and it would surely come.

Aidan produced some glasses that must have been concealed in some pocket, hidden on the inside of the sleeve of his robe. The lenses were rectangular and he instructed me as he put them on and turned to the door. “I will be focusing all of my attention on picking the lock. I have cloaked my presence to certain defences. They will mostly target you, until you leave, die or otherwise submit. You will watch my back and protect me.”

I was fairly dubious of the person who mocked me and then asked me to defend him. It wasn’t a long lived feeling however. It was quickly replaced by the reflexive reactions of my body to stop a fireball as it flew at Aidan from where I wasn’t sure. I grabbed it and felt a minor surge of energy fill me. He had reached his hand out to the handle of the door, a strange circle appeared in midair with even stranger markings, that seemed to have caused it.

I turned and found the statues seem to be spitting out the fireballs, I was able to block them, the surge of energy had increased my speed. I absorbed more and more of them, the magical energy being easily broken down by my gloves, until finally I heard a clicking noise. Blocking them had caused me to go almost into a trance of some kind, I was amazed at how I became able to sense them before they even came out.

“Alright, you’ve passed for now. That was one of the first doors I ever opened in this place, I was curious to see if you’d be able to handle such a low level door.” Aidan made that noise from earlier again, I think he was mocking me.

“Are you implying that you locked this door after having done it earlier just to test me?”

“I’m sorry if that sounded like an implication, I thought I stated it quite obviously.” He said smugly. “You didn’t think I’d trust some untested novice with my life… did you?”
As much of an arrogant jerk as this guy seemed to be, working with him was the best way to get information on this place for Alkain. He had foolishly pulled us all into some kind of war that we knew next to nothing about. I don’t know how much I can trust this Aidan fellow, but he may just be the best way to enlighten us about what's going on. If its true there are books even he hasn't read, it means that the information will be all the harder to control. Hopefully, this would lead to some semblance of truth in an otherwise unknowable situation.