Chapter VII - Alliances
"PERSONA CHANGE: MAD HATTER!"
Wymare's shout was accompanied by Gawain flourishing its sword before thrusting the blade ahead, aiming it at the pursuing Shadows that were chasing Wymare and Yselt through the twisted castle corridors. Spawned from nowhere, a gloved fist flew from the tip of the blade and clobbered one of the Shadows to the floor, with the strike being followed by several more in a flurry rush that beat the front of the Shadow horde into submission.
Despite the fury of the attacks, Gawain's use of its newfound Lucky Punch skill could not last. Each punch drained its user's strength bit by bit, and eventually, the armored Persona faltered in its stance and relented, Wymare staggering into a wall back-first as he felt the same fatigue.
Seeing her ally's vulnerability, Yselt stepped ahead and swung her flail. "PERSONA!" she cried, tired fury in her voice, and Nikanj manifested from the blue flames surrounding her, launching a Frei skill that exploded at the Shadows' feet in another burst of blue energy. With the floor singed and the enemy Shadows either disintegrating or fleeing as their numbers dwindled, the hall Wymare and Yselt stood in gradually drew silent.
"...I think... that's the last... of them," Yselt observed between heavy breaths. "We should... ahh..."
Before she could complete her thought, Yselt's vision blurred and her footing became uneasy. A heavy blanket of weariness had set in over her out of the blue, and she couldn't find the strength to fight it, sliding against a wall and to the floor to sit as she began to feel lightheaded. Frightened by this sudden collapse, Yselt forced herself to take deep breaths, centering her concentration on the rhythmic sensation of air flowing in and out of her chest. Nikanj dissipated into blue flames once again, fleeing into the flail that now sat limply on the floor next to the newly awakened Persona-user.
"H-Hey! Yselt, are you- agh...!" Wymare's concern trailed off as he clutched at his chest, the full brunt of his injuries and exertions finally catching up with him now that the adrenaline of battle was subsiding. Just as Nikanj before it had done, Gawain also faded into its user's weapon, and Wymare followed Yselt's lead by sliding into a seated position against the wall opposite her, unable to do anything other than allow his body the moment of respite it so badly needed.
For a brief, fleeting moment, the halls were still. There were no sounds of growling Shadows, no bursting of a Persona skill's intense power, and no words of any kind. Wymare and Yselt did nothing but sit where they were, breathing through their exhaustion together. Despite the inherent and ever-present danger of this strange new world, the two Persona-users found themselves in an atmosphere of peace, and, having fought until they were driven into their present states for it, they were all the more appreciative of its serene quiet.
"...I feel so... drained," Yselt groaned after some time had passed, pressing a hand to her temple. "And my head, it's... I feel as though my skull is cracking. Is this what... what you felt?"
"Perhaps I would have felt it," Wymare slowly replied through gritted teeth, "Had I not blacked out."
"Right... I wonder why that is?" Yselt leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes as she thought aloud. "You dropped like a sack of stones after you summoned Gawain, and yet... I have Nikanj with me now, and I merely feel... discomforted."
Wymare considered this fact for a moment. He could think of two possible reasons for his post-awakening reaction differing from Yselt's: the power of the Wild Card had made the strain on his mind far more severe, or the unconsciousness had been induced by Igor to summon him into the Velvet Room. Either explanation sounded plausible in his head, but he suspected that attempting to put them into words would only confuse Yselt and raise more questions than he would have been answering.
"I... don't know. Perhaps you're ultimately stronger in the mind than I." A small laugh from Wymare at his own distractive joke quickly devolved into a pained cough, making him regret the attempt altogether. A quiet laugh from Yselt followed not long after, though, and the sound allowed him to feel fractionally better about it.
"Thank you, but... I sincerely doubt that."
The honesty in Yselt's response gave Wymare pause. "Hm? Why do you say that?"
"I... I may have seemed strong back there when I was confronting my brother. I just felt so much anger, rising from a place in my heart I didn't know I had... But it wasn't for him. In truth, I would say I'm happier knowing the truth about what happened to us... at least, the truth from his twisted point of view."
Wymare listened to Yselt's speech attentively, biting the tip of his tongue to keep himself from interrupting her with an expression of his body's continuing pain. He could feel the emotion in her words as they spilled forth, and so he dared not intrude on them.
"That anger... those feelings that I let out when I stood up to him... they were all for me. I realized how weak I had been to wait out there in the streets for him, praying each day from sunrise to sundown that that day would be the day... the day my brother came back for me. I wanted to be back with the brother who helped feed me breakfast when mother and father were out... the brother that entertained my silly games, helping me 'invent' new magic out of dirt and dust... the brother I remembered so fondly and looked up to for guidance when everything came crashing down.
"But that brother... that image of Clerebold I held in my mind... he's not coming back. And whether he wants to lift me out of the Scadarah caste or press me deeper into it, I was weak to have placed my faith in him for as long as I did. Those two years I spent hoping and waiting... I was living them for him, and not for myself."
A sparkling wetness began to appear in the corner of Yselt's eye. Before it could magnify into tears, however, she was quick to wipe it away on her sleeve as she shifted her head to look at the floor.
"Yselt..." Wymare began tentatively. "You oughtn't to blame yourself for that. You were just a young girl, and he was the only family you had left. It was-"
"Please, let me finish. I do not mean to say that I resent my behavior in the first days, weeks, and even months after he departed. What I mean to say is that... even until a few days ago, I thought and acted the same as I had back then. I hadn't grown at all. I was still the same scared, shivering sister as I had been for years, right up to the day he brought me into the labor unit. I had resigned myself to whatever he was... No, that's not right. It wasn't just him... I had resigned myself to being a leaf in the wind, drifting and spinning at the mercy of the world around me."
Yselt paused, lifting her gaze to meet Wymare's to his surprise. In spite of the depressing nature of her pondering, there was a soft smile on her face as she went on.
"I only began to realize how wrong that way of living was... when I met you. At first, you were resigned to your fate as well, but after we discovered this world... you did something I was never capable of doing: you changed. You found your resolve and strove to change how things were, even if it was something as meaningless as saving the life of another Scadarah. You broke away from the feeling of helplessness I had welcomed for years, and you were so confident as you did it. It led me to wonder... 'Could I find that kind of strength within myself?'"
Only after she finished the last sentence did Yselt break eye contact with Wymare, looking off to the side as a bit of bashful nervousness rose from somewhere within her. Wymare, on the other hand, stared at her with wide eyes and a slightly agape jaw. There was a warm feeling that had been growing in his chest as she spoke, and though his first instinct was to call it flattery, that word felt far too self-indulgent for the matter at hand. After mulling it over to himself for a second or two, he opted to vocalize the feeling rather than toil over labeling it.
"I'm glad that I could help. So... what are you going to do now?"
"I'm not sure, to be truthful with you. I told my Persona that I would shatter those who would silence our voice, but... beyond this world, the changes I've undergone only exist within me. How can we change things out there if the only place where we hold the power to do so is in here?"
The two Persona-users sat in silence again as they thought about Yselt's question. Then, before Yselt was able to come up with anything close to a solid answer, Wymare offered up his thoughts, a hand to his chin as he spoke.
"...Well, we've already established that this world is connected to our own, primarily in that it reflects how things and people are viewed out there. Clerebold's Shadow seems to be the most evident proof of that we have at the moment. But is that connection as one-sided as we've been assuming it to be?"
"One-sided...? I-I'm not sure I follow..."
"Think about it. Our continued understanding of this place is that its nature is shaped by being parallel to the real Brilan, only in exaggerated and otherworldly forms like Shadows. But what if that parallel nature manifests in both directions? If things in here are changed by events out there, then..."
"...Are you implying we could change things out in our world by affecting the ways they are represented in this one?" Yselt concluded.
"We can't say that with certainty," Wymare added, noting the lack of salient knowledge present in their conjecture. "But I believe it may be worth trying to see if it holds true."
"W-Well... I don't know. I mean, what are you suggesting we do in here? Defeat Shadows until the people in the capital begin to change their minds? What if we do more harm than good with this? I... I don't want to make a mistake and be responsible for someone else's life, just because we were careless in our efforts..."
"I believe we can avoid those sorts of circumstances if we go about it the right way... though, first, we have to establish what the 'right way' is." Wymare began to shift in place as he spoke, shaking off the lethargy that had set in over their long discussion. "We can visit the Royal Library and see if- GAH!"
All the suppression of his pain gave way at once as Wymare attempted to stand up. He fell to his hands and knees as he cried out, utterly spent from the combined toll of his injuries and his efforts in fighting their way to and from the prison camp.
"W-Wymare!" Yselt gasped, pushing through her exhaustion to stand up and reach for him. "I'm sorry, you must be in so much pain from all that fighting... H-Here, please allow me."
Yselt bent down and grasped Wymare's hands, pulling them up from the floor and holding them in hers as she closed her eyes.
"N-No, there's no need," Wymare grunted unconvincingly, trying to pull himself together and appear as though he wasn't hurting as much as he was. "I'm... I'm fine, so-"
A strange buzzing sound filled the air, cutting Wymare off and prompting him to look up. Despite the recoil of her awakening still hampering her, Yselt had summoned Nikanj again, her Persona shimmering to her left with one of its legs outstretched toward the two of them. As Yselt used her Persona to cast a skill, a soft blue light enveloped Wymare's body, and he slowly began to feel his injuries fade and heal.
"Dia... Dia... Dia..." Yselt whispered under her breath as she concentrated on the skill. Within moments, Wymare felt as though he had never been hurt in the first place, and he easily pulled himself to his feet, a look of awe plastered across his features at Yselt's impressive new power. The aura around him faded just as it had appeared, and Nikanj returned to its flail with a flourish of cyan fire.
"That was... Thank you, Yselt," marveled Wymare. "Was... that healing magic?"
"Oh, n-no! At least, I don't think it was," Yselt said while shaking her head, her hands retreating from Wymare's and hiding behind her back. "I simply... saw your suffering, and it was like I already knew what to do. I t-think it's... one of my Persona's skills..."
"So, Personas can both attack for and rejuvenate us... That will be good to know, should we run across a hardy opponent."
"R-Right," Yselt concurred. "You know, I had wanted to take up magic to heal others in my mother's footsteps... I s-suppose this is merely another way of going about that."
Wymare smiled and nodded as he turned to pick up both of their Persona weapons from the floor, holding his axe with the bit against the floor and handing Yselt's flail over to her. She took her weapon and gave it a spin, taking a long, contemplative look at the spiked weapon's strange-looking material.
"Now, as I was saying," Wymare picked up, "I think a good place to start will be the Royal Library. If we're lucky, we may be able to find some texts that mention this other world, or even an aside comment in a study on magic. I recognize that to be wishful thinking, but I have a good feeling about it after all of this."
"...Yes, I agree," Yselt replied after a long pause, looking up from her weapon to meet Wymare's eyes with a look of excited focus. "I'll lend my aid however I can!"
Looking at Yselt's determined smile, Wymare could not help but allow his own to widen in turn. It seemed as though she had truly turned a corner after confronting her brother's Shadow and calling forth her Persona, and now that the two of them were resolved to working as a team, his outlook on scouring the depths of the world beyond the door became the slightest bit brighter.
Just then, Wymare heard something ring out in his head. It was a voice that seemed to echo from nowhere, calling out to him from the depths of his soul.
I am thou, thou art I... A new alliance has been forged.
The winds of change shall grow and swell, spurred on by this newfound power.
As ye awaken to the Hanged Man Persona, the power of thy bonds shall see thy journey through...
The Hanged Man Alliance with Yselt has reached Rank 1!
Once the invisible stranger trailed off and seemed to fade away, Wymare blinked and gasped, alarmed by what had just happened. It took him a moment to collect himself, but once he did so he remembered part of one of Igor's many tangential explanations that hadn't made sense at the time but were continuing to be contextualized after the fact by present events.
"You see, the Wild Card's greatest asset is its ability to convert the power of one's bonds into further strength. You will invariably encounter new allies on your journey who will come to your aid, and part of your agreement as a guest here is that you will develop your alliances with such individuals. This will serve to strengthen not only them, but your Personas as well."
Taking Igor's past words and the voice in his head both into account, Wymare surmised that what he had just established with Yselt had become one such bond - or 'alliance', as both the voice and Igor had put it - and, through it, he had gained access to... a tarot reading arcana? It wasn't all quite making sense yet, and thus Wymare resolved to himself that he would seek out the Velvet Room and ask after the strange occurrence that he had just sensed. After all, he was their 'guest' now; surely they wouldn't be that hard to find if he just looked for them.
"Hey! Did you get lost in thought?"
Hearing Yselt's question from down the hall snapped Wymare free of his musings. He turned in the direction her voice came from to see her standing at an intersection, looking at him with something of a confused stare.
"If we're going to stop at the Royal Library today, we'd best make haste," Yselt continued. "It was early evening when we came here, so I would say it's likely very late now."
"Ah, right; apologies," Wymare replied, hopping a few paces to catch up as they walked down the adjacent hallway and approach the door. "Are you sure you're alright to go there, though? If you're too tired, we can go tomorrow."
"Don't talk nonsense!" Yselt flashed a big smile and put a hand on her arm while flexing to emphasize her words. "I won't be kept down by my own Persona! You'd just better not slow me down!"
"Hah! I'll try," Wymare joked, happy to see Yselt in truly good spirits. With that, the two opened the door a crack, peered through to ensure nobody would see, and slipped through back to the real world, their Persona weapons disappearing as they crossed over and closed the door behind them.
All was now quiet in the world beyond the door, with the two Persona-users having left and the resident Shadows still avoiding the area. The lit candles mounted on the walls flickered as they always had, their flames dancing to and fro and emanating light that cast a human-like shadow, their glow obstructed so by a cloaked figure that stood facing the door at the end of the hall.
"...Both of them, huh?"
. . .
By the time Wymare and Yselt arrived at the Royal Library, the latter's estimation of the time they had left in the day to do their research had proved somewhat accurate. Their excursion into the world behind the door had taken them just over an hour, meaning they had only a few more to spare before the Agelasta bookkeepers would close down public access to the Library for the day. Certain members of the upper castes - such as the Mage's Guild, legislative scribes, and members of the Brilanian Assembly - could access it whenever they pleased, but Scadarah laborers would be chased out like rats in a kitchen if they overstayed their designated welcome. Therefore, the two recognized they had to work fast, and so they ventured into the stacks of the Library, searching for anything that could even be remotely construed as relating to that other world.
"'Number six: Ensure proper hydration prior to entering zen practices'? Please don't tell me this is another basic list of tips for performing meditation..."
Wymare gave Yselt the side-eye as she groaned through her exasperation with the scroll she had been going over for the past few minutes, pulling his eyes away from a dusty, tattered tome to do so. "Voice down, Yselt," he said, reminding her of the Library's golden rule for the umpteenth time.
Yselt made a pouting noise and set the scroll off to the side, reaching for another one out of the pile the two of them had amassed at their table. Her weary demeanor was indicative of how successful their findings had been up to that point. Dozens of old scrolls, books, tomes, and notes had been sifted through between the two of them, all purporting to pertain to the mind or theories on other worlds, and yet there was nothing that seemed to suggest any kind of awareness of the world beyond the door.
"How much longer must we keep at this?" griped Yselt as she slid a clipped-together stack of notes out from the mound and began reading them. There was a sleepy weight in her eyelids that Wymare could see plain as day, indicating that in spite of her earlier bravado, her Persona awakening was still taking a toll on her.
"At least a bit." Wymare's eyes shifted around them as he answered his partner's question. He'd be lying to himself if he were to say that he wasn't feeling the same mental drain that Yselt seemed to be undergoing as they thumbed through text after text with no progress made on what they came to search for, but that was not the main purpose for his concern.
Something had become very apparent to him as he was reading through archived Mage's Guild documents from the Library. This was that the Guild seemed very insistent on the principle that Scadarah were not to be performing magic or learning to do so outside of Guild-sanctioned studies and activities, meaning that if the wrong person happened to pass by and notice what manner of texts two Scadarah labor unit members were trawling through in their free time, problematic consequences would almost surely be in their future. This prospect made Wymare rather paranoid, his gaze darting between the figures of others in the rows of shelves as if expecting one of them to march over and call them out.
"But we've been through so many of these documents and none of them even allude to the other world..." Yselt continued. "Would it not be reasonable to assume it's never been known about and leave it there?"
"That's not all we're here to learn about. We're trying to determine whether or not affecting that world will affect ours in turn. And again, please keep your voice down."
Yselt pursed her lips and slouched in her chair, visibly loathe to continue reading the parchments in her hands even as Wymare continued flipping through his tome. Deciding to attempt to distract herself from the demoralizing loop of reading, finding nothing, and reading again, she ran the tip of her index finger up and down the edges of the pages while searching her thoughts for a conversation topic.
"...Say... we've just been referring to it as 'that other world' and 'the world beyond the door' over and over," Yselt began once she found something to talk about. "But that's a rather tepid way to refer to it, don't you think? Surely we should give it a proper name - it'd make it less cumbersome to say, at the least."
Wymare paused at her inquiry. She wasn't wrong; referring to the backside of the door in such a way was rather uninspired. And even beyond that, deciding on a name for it could help them discuss it in a way that wouldn't evoke such suspicion as if one were to overhear them openly referring to a world beyond their own.
"...You raise a fair point," he answered, finishing the last page of the tome and setting it down alongside the rest of their finished material. "In which case, what do you suggest we call it?"
Yselt looked excited for a moment at the turn in conversation before shifting into a thinking pose. "Uhh... Hmm... Well, it's a reflection... of our own world..." After a moment of further consideration, she gasped as her face lit up and an idea struck her. "Oh! I have it: Parallel Brilan! It's perfect!"
Wymare seemed unimpressed, although he did crack a slight smile of amusement at Yselt's enthusiasm over the name she came up with. "That... doesn't sound much more inspired, if I may be honest."
"Hey!" Yselt huffed, flushing and crossing her arms at the dismissive response. "You could have come up with a name for it yourself if your sole intention was to mock me, you bully!"
"Not so loud," Wymare reminded, his words interspersed between coy laughter. "I didn't say it wouldn't work as a name. In fact, I think we'll use it, at least for now. Perhaps it'll grow on me."
Yselt's pouting melted into a happy smile, though Wymare could still see the exhaustion that was draining her will to keep sorting through texts. With that in mind, he rose from his chair and began to pick up as many of the documents they'd pulled from the shelves as he could fit in his arms, preparing to undergo what would surely be a hellish process of returning them all to their proper places.
"Well, with that settled, let's put a pin in this for the time being," said Wymare. "Whatever information on Parallel Brilan there happens to be in these texts, we can find it tomorrow, or whenever we get the chance to come back here. We've had a long day, after all."
"But... Okay..." Yselt's initial insistence quickly fell apart and she joined Wymare in collecting the documents scattered across the table. She had very little energy to pursue further investigation, even with how eager she was to find out more about that world and further their exploits therein.
And so they set about putting back all of the texts they had taken for their purposes, deciding to divvy up the work and have Yselt handle scrolls and notes while Wymare put back tomes and textbooks. As he moved from row to row and scaled the sliding ladders placed before the bookshelves, Wymare's paranoia refused to leave him, invasive whispers filling his mind with worry about what would happen if he were to be seen in possession of texts on magic by a member of the Mage's Guild's upper echelons. His eyes darted back and forth as he climbed the ladders and slid the textbooks back into their alphabetically ordained positions, and he peered around corners before entering a new row in case someone was there.
Wymare recognized that this was ridiculous behavior. At this time of night, such caster figureheads would be busy attending to other matters and responsibilities that came with their positions of authority, not aimlessly shambling about the stacks of the Royal Library. All of this extra caution on his part would amount to very little. And yet he could not bring himself to relax, a cold chill in his veins running up his body as he continued. Perhaps it was the quiet atmosphere of the Library and the darkened windows playing tricks on him, but in that moment, Wymare was filled with the same fight-or-flight response that he felt when faced with Shadows.
Then, just as he was debating with himself over stopping his paranoid worrying, he peered around a corner and saw someone familiar. A tall, black-haired woman in caster's robes, staring up at the higher reaches of the bookshelf in front of her with a thoughtful finger tapping away at her chin.
The cold look in her eyes triggered Wymare's memory. It was the wagoner that had taken down the elderly would-be escapee during his transport to Rìo Ghaile - the one who had given that stern lecture before looking Wymare in the eyes, a look that made him shudder even now as he remembered it. He froze in place, angling himself just so that he could look around the corner and wait for her to leave without putting himself at risk of being seen. If anyone were to fulfill his worst fears about what a caster would do upon discovering a Scadarah with armfuls of magic tomes, it surely would have been her.
Thankfully, she did not seem to know he was observing her. Or, at the very least, she did not know who was there and opted to not pay them any mind. Instead, her eyes shifted across the rows of books stacked high on the shelves, settling on one before long and lifting her finger from her chin to wave it in the tome's direction. To Wymare's surprise, the book shifted out of its row and floated down from the shelf into her waiting arms, guided by the motions of her glowing finger.
The caster continued to do this for a few more tomes, gliding them down from the heights of the bookshelf with impressive fluidity. It seemed as though she was skilled in the application of magic not just as a weapon, but in practical uses as well. However, this was not what Wymare chose to focus on as he watched her from around the corner. Squinting his eyes and leaning forward just a hair, he focused on the titles of the books she was bringing down to her.
Secrets of the Natural World... Catalogue of Magic Styles... A Series of Writings on Mental Phenomena... Magicks of Olde Times...?
Wymare's curiosity was piqued. The titles of these books were similar to the ones he had picked out for his research with Yselt, and some were even ones he'd wanted to take but had already burdened himself with too many to bring them along. Why would someone else be looking for such a specific arrangement of tomes, much less a seemingly high-ranking caster?
As the caster gathered the books in her arms and turned her back to Wymare to walk out of the aisle, he decided to follow a ways behind her so as to not attract suspicion, quickly depositing his remaining tomes on a lower shelf with sufficient space so they would not be a distraction to him. Following the path she took through the towering rows of texts, Wymare eventually found himself in a more tucked-away clearing of tables and chairs distanced far from the rest of the Library, and at one of them was a young-looking caster scrawling away on parchment with a quill pen, surrounded by even more tomes, books, and notes than there had been at Wymare and Yselt's table.
Shifting to another row of shelves so as to avoid running into the caster when she doubled back on her way out, Wymare listened in as the caster he'd been following deposited her armful of books onto the table.
"Well, here are the last of the ones you requested," she said. "I don't mind bringing you the materials you require from time to time, but I will ask you to assume responsibility for returning them once you are finished. I've enough to deal with as it is without being haggled by bookkeepers about the unorganized mounds you leave behind."
"Ah, yes... M-My apologies, ma'am," replied the other caster, their voice hushed and light. "I will keep that in mind... I just wish they would not ask so many questions when they never understand the answers I provide."
"That may be less a problem with their intellect and more a problem with how you organize your findings. I will remind you that your research will not be evaluated by a panel of ten mirror images of yourself, so you had best make it comprehensible to people beyond such a... well, limited sect of the populous."
Wymare blinked. Was that an attempt at humor? Her demeanor certainly didn't seem to indicate it as such, and yet it was the chummiest he'd ever heard her speak with someone else.
"Right, of course...! I will do just that. Thank you again for your help," replied the caster seated at the table, exceedingly formal in their reply. They returned to their writings once they were finished speaking, leading the strict female caster to turn around in preparation for heading back.
"Good luck to you, Gerves." With that, she was off, retracing her steps to lead her away from that corner of the Library. Once she had departed, the caster began to pick up the books she had set down at their table, peering into their contents for moments at a time before setting them atop one of their many stacks of books and parchments just as quickly.
Still observing the seated caster from the cover of the bookshelf, Wymare contemplated what his next move would be. A cursory survey of the other books on the table whose titles he could see revealed them to be of similar subject matters to the newer ones, meaning the logical conclusion was that the caster was hard at work studying their contents - or, at the least, something with which their subject matters had a certain similarity. What if it had something to do with Parallel Brilan? Perhaps their greater expertise could offer a more informed opinion on the risk assumed in operating within that world.
But how would he approach them for that? Those who studied under the Mage's Guild were Agelasta by default, so along with his hunch that Scadarah were heavily discouraged from being involved in anything relating to magic, there was a difference in caste to take into account. Would they shun him if he were to speak up and ask them about their work - or worse, summon the Royal Library staff to have him removed?
A multitude of questions and worries swirled in Wymare's mind. This was a precarious situation, and one faux pas could land him in serious trouble. Yselt would likely be roped into whatever punishment he would face, seeing as how she had been involved with his investigations into Parallel Brilan. And there was little doubt that Clerebold would be brought in to facilitate that punishment; after all, if the sisters of the Godhalls told him about his post-awakening blackout, there was no doubt the bookkeepers would inform him of whatever happened here. If he was going to do anything at all, he needed to be certain beyond any doubt that it was the right thing to-
"...Um... Excuse me...?"
Wymare's face dropped as the caster at the table spoke up, slowly turning his head to see that they were looking straight in the direction of his hiding spot around the corner of the bookshelf.
"I... noticed you were, ah... there. Can... Can I help you?"
All of the careful consideration that had been going on within the confines of Wymare's thoughts vanished without a trace. All he wanted to do now was run. Run, and pray to Bahamut that he would escape the Library without being caught by the caster again. He couldn't risk getting in trouble and bringing attention to himself if he was to continue going to Parallel Brilan with even the limited freedom he enjoyed at present.
Before he could determine a way out, however, the caster stood up from the table and walked a few paces to be able to see down the row of bookshelves clearly, laying eyes upon Wymate standing up with one foot behind him and the face of a stray dog cornered in an alley. The two of them locked gazes and, seeing the panic in Wymare's eyes, the caster did something unexpected: instead of yelling at him or ordering him away, they looked concerned, putting their hands up as if to show they meant no harm.
"Oh, you're a Scadarah!" they exclaimed, drawing information from Wymare's sackcloth uniform. "Apologies, I couldn't tell from where I was seated. I didn't mean to frighten you..."
Taken aback by the caster's unusual tone and unsure of how to respond in the face of it, Wymare said and did nothing. Left with little to continue the conversation on, the caster relaxed their posture as well, lowering their hands and sliding them into the pockets of their uniform coat.
"Um... If... you don't mind me asking... Were you interested in my work?"
This question came as an even greater shock to Wymare's system. If this person were working beneath someone like the cold female caster, they would surely be aware of the restrictions against Scadarah having anything to do with magic or the study of it. Despite this, they almost seemed to welcome his apparent curiosity, an expectant, hopeful look on their face as they waited for an answer.
"I... Y-Yes...?" Wymare's answer almost sounded fearful, as though he were expecting the caster to pull the rug out from underneath him now that he had admitted to the reason for his eavesdropping. But if he was being offered the opportunity to have a scholar's insight into the matter he was after, then it was an opportunity he would be remiss to pass by because of fear.
Sure enough, his risk seemed to pay off, as the caster's bright green eyes lit up with excitement at his answer. "R-Really? You were? Then would you-"
Just as swiftly as their elation came, though, it was overcome with a look of concern and doubt. The caster put a hand on their head as they turned away from Wymare and began pacing about the tables, muttering to themselves, "No; come now, Merliad! What are you thinking? You know the precepts! Magic is not to fall into the hands of Scadarah... But if so, how am I to get my work into a state presentable to the general public? It's true what she said; I must find a way to see this done. And yet... Oh, fie; will I stumble into an opportunity such as this again...?"
At this, Wymare eased his stance away from fright and into general confusion. Had he really been quicker to consider the consequences of what was being proposed than the caster? He would likely face the harsher punishment, to be sure, but it was no less likely that they would be stripped of their place in the Mage's Guild were their actions to be discovered. Who in their right mind would risk such a thing when it crossed so many of Brilan's social standards for conduct between the castes?
"Ah-hem... Please, forgive me," said the caster, collecting themselves and facing Wymare again with a look of formality. "What I meant to ask was... would you be interested in assisting me with my work?"
"Wh... What do you mean by that?"
"Well... you see, my current studies have led me to strange subject matters, even as far as the Guild's ordinary scope is concerned. Therefore, not many can begin to comprehend it, much less hold interest in it for very long. But, given your, ah... apparent interest, I would be willing to refrain from reporting this if you would help me formulate my research for those with lesser understandings."
The twisting in Wymare's face at the apparent insult in 'those with lesser understandings' must have been plain to see, because the caster's formal attitude quickly fell to reveal the desperation it was masking beneath. "A-Ah, please, forgive me!" they exclaimed, waving their hands as if to dismiss their previous words from the air itself. "T-That was not a jab at your intelligence; I merely... Oh, now you've done it, Merliad, you utter fool!" They turned away again and planted their palms on their study table, ranting, "Haven't you practiced this enough by now!? Yet you still make an ass of yourself in every instance, from the benign to the crucial! Can you not get even the simplest exchange right without-"
"Umm, sorry to... interrupt?" Wymare piped up, venturing to interrupt their tirade before their volume got them noticed. "But I would be happy to assist how I can."
"Y-You would!?" The caster whose name seemed to be Merliad sprang up from their hunched-over ranting in surprise at Wymare's answer, but they rebounded and took a breath to steady themselves before continuing. "That sounds excellent. In that case, please, pull up a chair for yourself."
With their rocky first impressions out of the way and their agreement drawn, Wymare joined Merliad at the table piled high with their texts and parchments. Sitting at the base of it all, Wymare could hardly believe how high the books seemed to tower over the two of them. How did Merliad work like this? Very little of the documents seemed to be organized, and situated at the base of the mound were stray sheets with words finely written on them in fresh black ink.
"Very well then... Let's begin with the basic outline," Merliad began, gathering some of the parchments into their hands and tapping their bottoms on the table until they were in a neat stack before reading. "Now, my initial interests with this research were to do with a form of magic that is rumored to exist, but fell out of practice hundreds of years ago and is now a mere rumor among casters. However, this presented a problem unique to this subject: because so few people remember it, there are scarce few documents on file that even reference it, much less discuss it in detail. This made it nigh impossible for me to find a way to rediscover it and research it myself.
"So I have shifted my current focus accordingly. In order to find a way to bring back the dead practice of that particular magic, I am researching theories surrounding a sort of 'collective unconsciousness', if you will. A few theories raised by scholars of old pay lip service to the idea that our minds are all connected to one another, forming a sort of uniquely human perception of the world around us. I say 'lip service' because they could never find any means of even remotely proving the existence of such a bizarre construct, and so they were passed over in favor of more promising, immediate magical theories. Does this make sense to you?"
Wymare could scarcely speak. A collective human unconsciousness, formed by how people perceived the world around them? What Merliad was saying almost sounded too good to be true. Their research sounded nearly identical to what he and Yselt understood Parallel Brilan to be, and Merliad was completely unaware of it. Where he had minutes earlier been terrified of punishment at the hands of Clerebold, he now saw that he had struck gold.
"I... believe so, yes," Wymare finally answered, nodding his head to feign only a foggy hold of Merliad's words. "Do you mean to say that you think knowledge of that magic may still exist in that collective?"
"Yes! Yes, that's exactly what I mean to say!" Merliad looked incredibly excited by Wymare's quickness to grasp the basics of his studies, shuffling between their sheets of notes to continue. "Now, my current status is this: based on the many tomes and texts I have scoured thus far, there does seem to be a general outline of an agreement that our minds are connected, at least in surface-level superficialities. The way we react to traumatic stimuli, the way our senses shape both our understanding of the world's bounties and our tastes therein... I can feel the evidence; it's all right there. My current hangup is on drawing further inferences from that basic knowledge. It's not nearly enough to reach what those old theories suggest... It's as though I stand on the beginnings of a bridge, with a map of the paradise it will lead me to, and yet I lack the proper materials with which to construct the remainder of it."
Much of what Merliad purported in this part of their summation only registered with Wymare on a passing level. This could not be helped, as Merliad was struggling with the through-line to the endpoint that Wymare had already stumbled his way to. The more they explained their current hypothesis, the more Wymare was convinced that this 'collective unconsciousness' they spoke of had to be what Parallel Brilan was. This emboldened him to seek more inferences from the well-studied caster, and so he did just that.
"So... I have a question. Say you were to find this collective unconsciousness. How would you go about finding what you were seeking within it? Could you even impact it at all?"
"Oh...? That is... an intriguing question," Merliad responded, lowering their notes to ponder over his question. "I had not considered this, in truth. But if I were to venture a guess based on my current knowledge, such a construct would likely be a reflection of how majorities of people view our world. Therefore, it would in all likelihood resemble it quite a bit, with occasional deviances here and there. It is within those deviances that I think I would find what I seek, so long as I knew where to look for them."
"But what would happen if you were to tamper with that? If it's a reflection of our world, does that mean the reflection is only one way, or could that influence be true in both directions? It may be unsafe to interfere with such a connection."
"I... suppose you have a point," Merliad conceded. "But to answer the concern you seem to be raising, no, I do not think something as minute as accessing information would have much of an impact. After all, what happens in our minds is often a mystery even to ourselves. It would take much more deliberate tampering to have any side effects on our world... something focused and direct. Perhaps it could even change a person's mentality on the whole, should the practice of plundering it be refined enough..."
The look in Merliad's eyes seemed to change as they considered the implications of what they were saying. That didn't matter to Wymare, though. Merliad was spelling out exactly what he had hoped to learn in coming to the Library with their conjecture: changing a person through interacting with Parallel Brilan was possible if applied to a determined focal point. The focal point would have to be something innately tied to the target, however. It would have to be something that, if altered, could redefine them as a person from the ground up.
It would have to be something like a Shadow.
"...You know, I must admit," Merliad commented after some lengthy pondering, "I did not expect this to provide such thought-provoking caveats to my studies. I must have truly lucked out in stumbling upon you, ahh... M-My apologies, I don't think I caught your name."
Wymare struggled to keep his smile contained. If anything, he was lucky to have stumbled upon the exact caster he needed in order to find the answers he sought. "Wymare Thiebaut," he said. "And you're Merliad, correct?"
"Yes, correct," the caster nodded. "Merliad Gerves. I would love nothing more than to continue chatting with you over my work, but I do believe the hour of public access ending for the day is approaching. Would you be opposed to further discussions like this in the future?"
At last, Wymare was surprised by something the caster had said. All he had been trying to do was find the answers to the questions he had, and he had managed to impress a member of the Mage's Guild this much. "Well, sure, if you'd like."
"Excellent!" Merliad stood up from their seat and clasped Wymare's hands in theirs, shaking them to solidify their renewed agreement. "I come to do much of my work here during the days where I am not occupied elsewhere. Please, whenever you have time, come by and I will deliberate over more of this with you."
Wymare smiled and shook their hands as well, still a bit surprised at how readily he was being embraced by an Agelasta in the trade of magic studies. "I'll keep that in mind. Now, I'd best be going."
With that, Wymare turned around and hurried back through the maze of bookshelves back to the main area of the Library. Yselt had surely finished returning the rest of what they had pulled out for their studies by now, and he would want to find her before the bookkeepers did in their rounds to close up the Library. Merliad waved after him, still elated at the stroke of luck they'd found in inviting a seemingly random Scadarah into their work.
"Quite a head on his shoulders, that one. Though it seems to lack the sense to realize where his place is."
Merliad's blood ran cold as a smug-sounding voice rose up from behind them. They whirled around to see a face they were quick to recognize, and once they had, a pit began to open up in their stomach as they attempted to play off what the newcomer had surely just borne witness to.
"S-Supervisor Clerebold! W-What a surprise to see you in the Library at this hour...! I c-can recommend you a nighttime read, if that's what you're after..."
Clerebold's smile only widened as Merliad swiftly dispatched their notes onto the table, every facet of their body language blowing their cover before they could even establish it. "I don't have as much time to read as I'd like, unfortunately. I am forced to spend it keeping track of the laborers under my command, as you are no doubt aware. And would you like to know a trade secret? The more time I spend tracking vermin, the easier it becomes to spot a problematic specimen."
Clerebold began a slow pace around the tables in the study area, his self-satisfied smirk painting a stark contrast to Merliad's panicked frown. "And I must say... it amazes me how easily those with little regard for our way of life find each other."
Merliad could say nothing. They knew they had been caught breaking the rules by dealing in magic with a Scadarah, and worse yet, it had been a Scadarah who seemed to be of particular interest to Clerebold. A lump swelled in their throat that they were forced to swallow, a bead of sweat slipping down their brow in anticipation of what the labor unit supervisor would say next.
"Let's not beat around the heart of the matter, caster," Clerebold continued, raising a pen to the clipboard he held fast in his arm. "A collection of quill strokes on this parchment are all it would take for me to report your disgraceful actions to the Guild. I would be doing the whole of Brilan a public service in having you discharged. But that's far too wasteful, you see. I may serve to discard the kingdom's trash, but I can still recognize when trash has value to me."
"...W-What do you want?" Merliad asked, finally forcing words out in the face of the intimidation game on display.
"Only your cooperation. That Scadarah you were so enthralled with... you will follow him. And the girl he associates with, as well. You will observe what they do, and you will report it to me. Every detail. Or your dearest mentor will hear of your transgressions faster than you could take in the breath to explain yourself."
Even under such frightful circumstances, Merliad could not help but be struck by the odd nature of Clerebold's request. What could be of such interest to him about two Scadarah laborers that he would play such manipulative games to learn about their actions? What did he stand to gain from it?
"I have no need to explain myself," Clerebold assured as though he could sense what Merliad was thinking. "I do not lower myself to the level of scum by doing so. And for you to act with such camaraderie around such scum... Well, I must congratulate you on finding a way to make yourself an even lesser organism, at the least."
Merliad blinked, genuine surprise breaking through their worried expression. "What... do you mean by that?"
For the first time since he'd shown himself, Clerebold's smirk faltered, showing a brief sneer of disgust trained squarely on Merliad. "Where one comes from carries a heavy stigma in this kingdom, worm," he replied coldly. "I would hope one of your training would catch my meaning without further babble."
Indeed, Merliad knew exactly what Clerebold was implying, and their heart skipped a beat at the realization. Clerebold's smirk returned in full force as he turned around, tucked his clipboard under his arm, and began to stride away.
"I wish you luck in scrounging up an invisibility spell, caster. Should you neglect my request, you may find yourself in need of it."
With that last veiled threat out in the open, Clerebold disappeared into the further recesses of the Library's rows of shelves, leaving Merliad to process what had just been thrust onto them. Defeated, they sank back into their chair with little grace in their movements, a vacant stare drilling through their notes and the table they laid on. Before long, their head was in their hands as they despaired over what they were now being made to do. No amount of despairing could help the fact of the matter, however, and they eventually began to pack up their things, forgoing their usual routing of working long into the night.
For now, they had a more pressing assignment to attend to.