LSRO: Chapter 109 - Not Possible at this Moment (Patreon)

Hi there lovelies

I've been sick again, because it's so much fun haha! Anyhu! - Some necessary bookkeeping for Quinn in this chapter. It's not a cliffy - just so you know ;)

My artist sent me my cover concept over the weekend and I cannot wait to share it with you when it's done. I'm so excited.

Hope you enjoy today's chapter.

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Chapter 109

Not possible at this moment

"'This is actually a lot worse than I imagined," Milaro said, as he idly twisted a long lock of his hair. Quinn had observed that habit of his several times now.

"Can we even keep the Library open at this stage?" Siliqua asked. She was fidgeting with a pen in her hands, her brow furrowed with worry. "Isn't it too dangerous?"

"Well, we can't close it up to patrons again," Link said. "It's the flow of magic in the universe. We almost went into full meltdown, and we barely avoided it. We're only just getting the power back that we need." Link stood up and started pacing, which was odd considering he currently looked translucent. Quinn watched portions of her office through his pacing body, fascinated.

No, shutting out the patrons at this juncture would put everything we've worked for in jeopardy, the Library, who had decided to take part in this meeting, added.

Quinn listened to all of them argue. Lynx, the Library, Milaro, Harish, Siliqua, and Eric. They discussed aspects of the Library she'd never really been there for. From older power levels, to heightening security through golems like they used to have.

She looked around her office, which had, thanks to the Library's innate abilities, managed to double in size. Now there was a conference table, literally, with doughnuts in the middle of it, courtesy of Cook. She looked at it and wondered if maybe he had pulled some information from some dramas back on Earth. How else would he know that this is what a conference room, or part of a conference room, looked like? She tapped her chin, trying to figure out how he'd done it.

"Quinn?"

She looked up at Lynx blinking. "What?"

"Are you still with us? Do you want to help us save the Library?" There was a shift in his tone, like he was irritated by her spacing out.

"Of course! Considering it's literally what I'm supposed to do." Then she paused, and sighed. "Sorry, I was just contemplating some things, and you were all talking about stuff I couldn't contribute to."

"Oh," Siliqua said. "We're sorry. It's just, there's so much we have to be careful not to repeat, or not to invite."

Eric nodded. "We must make sure we're prepared for what is to come. But we do realize it's been a lot. For all of us."

Quinn shrugged. "Well, to be fair, it's been a lot for the entire time I've been here. This sort of just feels like normal every day -- Oh wait, there's another crisis on hand. Right?" Everyone at the table looked at each other somewhat uncomfortably. Quinn shrugged again. "What? It's true. It's not like we've had many moments of peace."

"Well, really," Eric said, crossing his arms as he hovered at her side. "I mean, we've had a few days here and there of peace."

"Yes, and those were super-hectic days where we had to check in thousands of books because people decided they didn't want to be fined, after all." Quinn looked over at him, frowning.

"Well, when you put it that way..." Eric said, his voice trailing off.

Quinn sighed. "Look, I get it. This is unexpected and unprecedented, and so am I. So we just need to figure out how best to deal with it because shutting the Library is obviously not an option. Won't shutting down the Library again stop our filtration? Isn't that just going to ruin everything again?"

"Well," Milaro said, leaning forward and steepling his fingers. "Yes, it likely would."

Quinn tried another approach. "Couldn't we just get a heap of people in here, close the doors, and get all of those people to pour a heap of power into the reserves?"

"Well, that's an option," Milaro frowned, "but given how the Library's system functions, that's not a good option. It requires ingoing and outgoing mana and magic to be balanced and retrieved. It's why the fine system doesn't exclusively consist of people giving the Library some of their power."

"Oh," Quinn said, oddly let down by the logic. She was just desperately trying to see if they could prevent a potential catastrophe by removing the Library from the picture while they powered up. Until it was safe "Well, I guess it wasn't going to be that easy."

"We've only just started getting power levels even close to stable," Harish said. "We're still a long way off from being completely out of the woods. While this is taking us longer to delve into than I'd have liked, it's best that we don't rush anything."

"I'll agree with you there," Quinn said and then she turned to the manifestation. "What about Lynx? Are you safe now?"

The Library spoke up again, intoning throughout the room. Well, he's as safe as he can be.

"How can we be sure this won't happen again?" Quinn asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The owl's memories appear to have been slightly image-modified," Milaro spoke up this time, shifting in his seat like the words made him uncomfortable.

"Wouldn't that require some super-strong mental magic?" Quinn asked.

Milaro scowled, and she could tell this was really eating at him. "Yes, this would require very strong mental magic. It's verging on such strength that I should probably personally know the individual responsible for inflicting such a memory wipe."

"You should know them?" Quinn had to suppress a laugh at that. "What do you mean? Aren't there, like, trillions of people in this universe?"

"Well, yes," Milaro said. "But the amount of people who can utilize mind magic to such a degree of finesse that leaves the owl in question unaware of the tampering, but also practically convince an entire room of scholars, Library assistants, and a King that it was true, that's a high level... Well, frankly, apart from me, there might be a few dozen people who could reach it."

"Oh," Quinn said somewhat taken aback by the level. "Well, that's great. Anyway, what we need right now is to figure out how to proceed. Ririn's Dimensional Distortion Through Sacrificial Means, the Parsneauvian Theory of Spatial Dimension Manipulation, and the Crown and Fall of Pocket Dimensions Due to Spatial Interference. I need those three books. Can you locate them just with their name?"

Lynx hesitated. Milaro sighed and fell back into his chair.

And the Library answered. No. Not possible at this moment.

Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose, trying not to lose her temper. Not that anyone could do anything about the situation, but the frustration was starting to boil over a wee bit.

Just answering her question wasn't enough. It would have been nice if there was an explanation offered. However, it seemed the Library wasn't intuitive in that way, at least not today.

"So, would you care to explain to me why this is not possible at this point in time?" she asked.

Lynx looked away from her, down at the ground, and didn't meet her gaze again. Milaro did the same.

Finally, the Library spoke up. "Due to the erasure of certain information in the system, in our memory, the recollection of those tomes is incomplete. While the names are flagged as something we should know, there is no further information available on them, including being able to trace where they're currently located."

"And so," Quinn sighed, "it's currently not possible to locate accurately. Great, okay, so, can you do a divination spell? Is there a divination set of books I can just go absorb and voila, we can figure out where it is?"

"That is a very interesting thought," Eric said, his wings suddenly moving faster as if excitement had caught him. "Actually, give me a little bit, I will go and check the divination section, I think there's something we can use."

"Oh, well, that's great," Quinn said, feeling a little bit more proactive about the whole situation. "You didn't want to stay for the rest of the meeting?"

"Oh, no, you'll catch me up. Don't worry darling, I'll be fine," Eric said, winking at her before he flitted out of the room so fast that Quinn could barely see him go. He was just a streak of red and black.

"Huh, learn something new every day," she muttered.

"Well, that's a fortuitous turn of events," Siliqua said, letting out a breath. "I just wanted to update you that Cadre is due to arrive in the next day or two. The Library will vet him. And I was wondering, Quinn, if you wanted to meet him first, before he does anything?"

Quinn raised an eyebrow, recalling that Cadre was the Serpensirilian species-related friend who would help with the sequencing. "If I'm here then I'd like to meet him, but otherwise I don't want to hold him up. Is that a good answer enough?"

Siliqua nodded. "Yes, if you're here and not away retrieving books, I'll introduce you to him before things get started."

"Fantastic, so that's the sequencing taken care of. Do you need more from me for the sequencing?"

"No, we do not." Siliqua smiled.

"Then let's get back to where we got derailed from," Quinn said. "So it's highly unlikely we'll have dumb luck again, like we did last time we went to retrieve one of the culinary books."

"That was more than just dumb luck. I have no idea how it happened," Milaro said, strumming his fingers on the desk absently, "like the odds of that book being on that island? A hop, skip and a jump from where a quasi-cult was trying to open a dimensional portal to do whatever? That was some pretty nifty coincidence."

"You don't believe in coincidences, do you, Milaro?" Quinn thought this discussion sounded vaguely similar to a previous one.

"No, I do not. Not usually." Milaro admitted, "And this one, that was very close to being suspiciously coincidental."

"Do you think there's a possibility of us having some more of these types of coincidences?"

Milaro gave her a grave look. "I would hope not, but given your previous history, I think suspicious coincidences tend to follow you around like a bad smell."

"Oh great, now you're questioning my personal hygiene." Quinn cracked a grin.

Milaro actually laughed. "I'm not, you know that. I'm just concerned about the history of trying to find these books."

"Speaking of which, since we currently don't have a divination ritual that will allow me to locate where these books are kept, and we don't have a location tracker or you don't have a tracking device or something attached to the books, and can't locate the ones we really need to get out of circulation, I'd say our next best bet is to obtain the other culinary books, you know? So we can eventually open the culinary branch, right?" Quinn wanted to get the meeting over and done with.

"Yep, sounds like a logical next step." Milaro agreed.

"Something to while away the time, Lynx?" Quinn peered at him. "Maybe you want the Library open, maybe you don't, you've been staring at the floor for the last five minutes."

Lynx sighed, "I'm concerned about potentially allowing you to do divinations."

Quinn raised an eyebrow, "And I kind of don't care. I'm here, I have all the magic affinities, I may as well use them."

Lynx chuckled, "Yeah, may as well. So, your plan is to get the other culinary books while waiting for everything else to fall into place?"

"Yeah, I figure that since we have to figure out where the rest of the restricted section books are, well, why don't you guys just do that while I go and gather the rest of the culinary books? I'll take Malakai with me,
Aradie with me, I'll probably end up taking Eric with me too, he's usually really helpful." Quinn was already planning the whole trip out in her head.

"What about Finn?" Milaro asked.

"Finn? The little Ilgonomur?" She'd seen them around here and there, but if she was honest with herself, they seemed to be more of the lurking type.

"Yes. How is Finn doing?"

"I don't know, okay, I guess? They helped with the Serpensirilian debacle." Quinn mulled it over. "Why? You sound oddly curious."

"Finn's been here the longest, with Eric and Geneva, and the Aracnio twins, and Danio, but I rarely see Finn, I was just curious." Milaro's expression was so serene Quinn was quite sure he was using it to cover a lie.

Quinn tucked that thought in the back of her head, there had to be a bigger reason that he was curious about Finn, and she was going to figure that out, because apparently he didn't want to tell her. "Anyway, I want to open the culinary branch, thus I need three more books, and since we have the locations for those. I think that's our best bet."

"Sounds like an excellent idea," Harish said. "Having another of the branches open allows the mana to flow freer, it will enable us to capitalize on the amount of power we're using and gaining."

"Excellent, but first I want more firepower and healing power on my side, so I need suggestions for some healing books." Quinn was determined to be more self-sufficient next time she ran into trouble. And she had no doubt she'd run into it.

"Oh," Milaro said, sitting up perfectly straight as if she'd just caught his interest, "then I have just the thing for you. Mind over Matter, as Mana Translates to Healing and Powerful Ice Tactics for the Bold. Those two, definitely."

"Great!" Quinn grinned and sent the book names to Misha. "Well, I will absorb those, get me the location information we need, Lynx?"

Lynx was frowning as he spoke. "There are two orphaned books where the original borrower and their family are gone, and they're in pretty easy locations to find." He paused for a moment, the frown deepening. "Hm and then there's one that seems attached to an individual who seems reluctant to return the books."

"Oh, great," Quinn rolled her eyes, trying to ignore the feeling of trepidation that tingled down her spine. She didn't want a repeat of Kajaro. That was the last thing they needed.

"I'm assuming divination will take a while to set up?" Quinn directed the question to Siliqua.

"You'd assume correctly, Librarian." The wood elf inclined her head in acknowledgment.

Quinn nodded, half to herself as Tim entered the room more silently than he had any right to and placed the two tome suggestions from Milaro on the desk. "Well, I guess we should prep everything we need to go and retrieve those culinary books." She looked at the map Lynx had opened in her face.

"Those are the two locations of the orphaned tomes."

"Alright." Quinn stood up, determined to get ready and get to those books as soon as possible. "Just give me a bit to absorb these, and then we'll head off and get the easy books out of the way."

~~

So much for Quinn to do to restore the damned Library lol

Much love

KT