LSRO: Chapter 298 - Potential Perks (Patreon)

Weeee I think I'm getting back in the swing of things.

And chugging along!!!

Not sure what to say about this one. We're about to start hitting some serious action.

~~

Chapter 34

Potential Perks

Quinn blinked at Nishpa, Milaro, and Malakai, struggling to comprehend how they knew Arnekai had withheld the truth. It wasn’t uncharacteristic, but it hadn’t crossed her mind initially, which was odd in itself. Her own mother, even the foster parents she’d had, hadn’t lied. The latter had been a bit abrupt and occasionally harsh, but she felt like all the adults in her life usually gave it to her straight. She couldn’t imagine what Mal might be feeling right then.

“So, you want us to go find her now?” Quinn asked, admitting that they could. She had grown stir-crazy in the Library and desperately needed an escape. Meeting Carafax on the island hadn’t allowed her to stretch her wings, so to speak, as much as she would have liked.

Nishpa laughed. “No, Gods no, we can’t do that yet. I have no idea how to confront her. Arnekai is far too foxy for that. I need to plot this. So, probably in a day or three.”

Quinn sighed. “Fine.” 

“What do you think, Milaro?” Nishpa asked, turning to the Elven King.

“I think that probably sounds like a fantastic idea, but are you sure Arnekai knows the whereabouts of Ardenil? I’ve spoken to her briefly about it recently and I didn’t believe that she knew... but she’s never been an easy read.”

Nishpa gave him a look of considered commiseration. “She had practice with your son.”

“I know she had him wrapped around her finger...” Milaro said, clearly not amused, but obviously reticent to say anything else in front of Malakai.

“Look,” Nishpa said, her tone softening, “It’s not like she’s betraying you.”

“Oh no, she’s not betraying us at all. If Ardenil is the one who’s responsible for all of this...”

“No, I don’t think Ardenil was responsible for all of it, just perhaps...” Nishpa seemed to be searching for the right phrase and Quinn was utterly captivated by the golden hue her hovering wings created. “She didn’t orchestrate this. It’s not in Ardenil’s wheelhouse, but she would definitely have taken the ball and run with it. I think is the right analogy.”

“Do you really believe this?” Milaro asked, although he sounded like he already did.

“Well, I think it’s highly likely. I mean, her magical signature is all over this.” Nishpa waved her hand around vaguely.

“You mean the eye?” Milaro asked.

“Yes, the eye that literally belonged to her before Quinn manifested it out of her mind.” 

Milaro looked at Quinn long and hard, like he wanted to say something but wasn’t quite ready to. He turned his attention back to Nishpa after a few seconds. “Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t think she’s dead.”

Nishpa laughed. “She’s way too stubborn for that.”

“I also don’t believe for even a moment that she’s away on some special trip.” Milaro’s words were clipped with annoyance.

Nishpa shrugged. “All the more reason to figure out our approach and find her.”

“Okay, so we’ll go in a few days,” Quinn interrupted, fighting back a huge yawn. Everything they’d just said spun around in Quinn’s head, leaving her dizzy and blurry.

“You know,” Malakai said, “you should probably go to sleep soon.” 

Quinn blinked rapidly at him. He had a point. She couldn’t even remember exactly when she’d last slept.

“Anyway,” he said, as Nishpa and Milaro continued to converse in softer voices in the background, having pulled slightly away from Quinn’s desk to do so. “This Library alarm grid? I don’t see how else they could approach the security, but I’m no expert. I mean, the experts are obviously the Library and Harish, probably Siliqua. You might want to have Siliqua pulled back over here for this.”

Quinn watched Malakai as he dove further into the information she’d passed over to him. He had a good point. Quinn only had instinctual knowledge, none of the factual basis. Nothing that wasn’t simply reflex and reaction. Things that she hadn’t learned and had no idea if they’d be effective or not. She only hoped they would be.

Malakai cleared his throat. She’d obviously managed to space out again. “Um, does the Library have analysis assistants?” he asked.

“Well, Lynx, I guess,” Quinn said, thinking about it. “And Harish and Siliqua...” 

“Yes, but Harish and Siliqua are my grandfather’s friends. They’re not just beholden to the Library.”

“Well, no, but they worked with the Library for centuries before it shut down, right?”

“I think so.” 

Quinn wished she knew and could fill in the blanks for everything she had never been here for. Maybe she could retrieve some of the memories contained in the fabric of the Library. If that was a thing. It sounded like it could be a thing. Magic could probably make it a thing. Reading the past waves of being or some such. It wouldn’t surprise her.

Malakai hummed under his breath for a few moments while Quinn thought over the web as she’d experienced it herself until she was pulled out of her own trance by him speaking. “This just looks so messy. Did you not notice how messy the security was before?”

“I’d not gone that deep before. I was only responsible for the entrance wards originally, before my last synchronization. I couldn’t reach the ones that go all the way down to the filtration system.” Quinn pondered that for a second, as apparently did Malakai.

“Hmm,” was all he said. “I think I need a bit longer with this. I might take it to Harish. Is that okay?”

Quinn shrugged. Even though he wasn’t on her direct list - at this point in time and after the Library’s reaction, she didn’t think she had much of a choice. Harish and his wife were definitely list adjacent anyway, but something held her back. “I think I probably do mind. We might want to call Lynx in on this, maybe?”

“Well, he’s busy right now,” Malakai said, “so let me just go over this again.” 

She watched again as his face shut down and he began concentrating in earnest again. Her gaze drifted across to Milaro and Nishpa, having their discussion, when a thought struck her that wasn’t, well, it wasn’t something she’d considered before.

Maybe it was tiredness making her think that way, but she locked her shields down tightly, just in case. She wanted to keep all the thoughts to herself, fighting to make sure that they remained private. Quinn wasn’t entirely sure why she suddenly had this massive distrust for anybody around her, and less than charitable thoughts, but how had the Library overlooked so much?

Even with the memory gaps, there were still protocols and system analysis and alarms and, well, all measures of security that weren’t just alarms. There should have been lists and specific sequence and routines is that the Library had to complete as regular maintenance, otherwise it would shut down. Shouldn’t there?

The Library might have been organic as such, in a way, and not actually a machine, but so many of its system integration particulars resembled computers and machines. So how had it overlooked so much? Just what did the memory loss really mean?

Now Quinn was getting way too paranoid, because overall the information loss, the attacks, the missing books... they all appeared sporadic and confusing, and it didn’t. Well, maybe it did defy logic. Maybe there was a hint in those missing books. The ones that should have been there but obviously weren’t. Maybe she needed to prioritize those.

The more she thought about it, the more that mind capitulation book called to her. Was it instinct or desperation? Only really one way to find out...

Quinn somehow managed to disassociate herself for several minutes. The next thing she knew, Malakai was leaning across and poking her in the shoulder.

“Where did you go?”

“Um, just thinking, sort of,” at least that’s what Quinn thought she’d been doing. Speculating might be more apt.

“Anything you want to share?” he asked.

“Not yet.” Quinn wasn’t about to give rise to her paranoia until she had some facts to back said paranoia up, and right now, that was all it was.

“You,” Malakai said, pulling her attention again, “need to go and get some sleep.”

“I’m fine,” Quinn said, even though she knew he was pretty much right.

“Quinn, sincerely, you look like crap. You look tired, you look worn, and you look really stressed.”

Quinn threw herself against the back of the chair, causing it to creak and sigh deeply. “I know, I know, I need to sleep, and sometimes I just, I worry.”

“You worry about the dreams you might have?” Malakai asked, apparently knowing her better than she knew herself.

“Yes, I’m worried I’ll have another dream that shows us more things we have to investigate, which gives us less time to do everything else that we already need to do and research and figure out before somebody decides to pull the plug on the proverbial bomb that they’ve planted in the Library, and we’re all just going to go up in smoke — the whole universe, everything.”

She hadn’t realized how fast she’d been speaking, nor how into her speech she’d gotten, and managed to pull the attention of Milaro and Nishpa away from the conversation they’d been having.

“Quinn,” Milaro said, coming closer, “are you feeling quite all right?”

“Yes, I’m just, actually,” Quinn said as she examined herself closely. Some of the tension had escaped her shoulders, and she felt marginally lighter. “You know, I feel a bit better than I did.”

Malakai grinned at her, “Of course you do. Sometimes we need to get it out of our system.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow and Milaro laughed. “It’s good to see you listen to some things I’ve taught you,” he said to his grandson and then he turned to the Librarian. “Now, Quinn, have you been doing your meditation?” 

Her shoulders flagged. “When I remember.”

“Well, I guess that’s better than never?” Milaro asked, raising his own eyebrow. 

“I’ve done it a bit. I just use it when I know I have to.” She shrugged, feeling uneasy. 

“It’s probably better to just get in the habit of using it regularly. It might help. Now, what was this about you not wanting to sleep?” His tone had changed and his mentor mask was back in place.

Quinn sighed again. “It’s not that I don’t want to sleep, it’s not that I feel, I guess, endangered or anything. Aradie’s there.” The owl buried her head at the nape of Quinn’s neck for just a second, lending some warmth and strength. “See, she’ll protect me. She’ll pull me out if I need to. So it’s not that I’m worried, it’s more that I just don’t want more information than we’ve already got because we have enough threads to follow. I’d like to tie off some of these loose ends, some of these investigation avenues, before we take any more on our plate. Stretching ourselves too thin seems like it’s asking for trouble.”

Milaro nodded very slowly, his eyes seemingly distant. Nishpa fluttered next to them. “You should sleep, Quinn,” he said gently.

“I will.” She caved.

Nishpa smiled and placed a tiny hand on Quinn’s. “I can help with that. I am a mind healer.”

“I know, I know, but I would prefer to develop the ability to sleep myself.”

Nishpa actually chuckled, “Of course you would. But sometimes we all need help.”

Quinn wondered if perhaps she was letting her tiredness interfere with her perception of the information she was currently navigating. She was seeing shadows where there shouldn’t be any. “It’s okay. I am a little worried about the security, so I want to call Misha and Lynx.”

She called out, waiting while they popped into existence right next to her. “Exactly, I need to talk to them about some security measures that the Library and I tried to implement and I’m not entirely sure if they worked. I think I’m just taking on a lot.” 

Milaro cleared his throat. “You know you can delegate, right?”

“I’ve delegated,” Quinn said. “Look, everybody’s running the desk, they’re getting to do all the fun work and talk to the people and recommend the books and get the fines and go and retrieve books and I’m stuck here trying to figure out who else is trying to kill my Library and why.”

“Well, once you’ve figured it out,” Nishpa said, “and we’ve gotten rid of the problem...” she nudged Milaro, who continued. Then you can do all the fun Library things you want."

Quinn glowered at him. “Yes, yes, I’m sure I’ll be able to do that, eventually.”

She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. After all, she’d landed in a magical world and she did kind of love the potential perks... Right now she knew she wasn’t being fair, but at the same time, nothing about the situation was fair. To calm herself down, she closed her eyes briefly, concentrating on the heartbeat she could feel through the core, right through to the filtration system. From what she’d gathered, the Library thought it was Quinn’s heartbeat, having amalgamated with the Library in such a seamless fashion. Quinn wasn’t entirely sure if that’s what it was, but it felt good and strong and like maybe, just maybe, they could get through all this.

“So, what do you think?” she asked Nishpa and Lynx.

Misha blinked at her with her moon-like eyes.

Lynx raised an eyebrow. “I think it will take us a while to go through every strand of the security screen, the security web, you know. Make sure that everything’s working as intended, and better. Misha and I will find the loopholes.”

Misha cocked their head to one side. “There is the uneven area Lynx has shown me. I do not remember this previously, but that could have been with my other resident in my head.”

Quinn was impressed. She hadn’t been aware that Nishpa was, well, aware of the passenger in their head, — of the supervisor. It made things a bit easier. At least everybody knew why certain memories and mannerisms wouldn’t be present.

“Anyway,” Misha said, “Lynx and I shall endeavor to find a solution. Was that all a progress update?”

Quinn nodded. “And just to check in on how you’re recalibrating.”

“Excellent. Much better than the first time around.” There was a small uptick at the corner of Misha’s mouth, and Quinn thought it might just be a smile. “Very well, thank you.”

Lynx rolled his eyes and popped away directly after the golem.

“Well,” Quinn said, blinking at the spot they’d vacated. “That’s a thing off my plate,” but before she could say anything else, she felt a surge of power emanating throughout the Library as a door was opened, and she knew he’d step through that door before he even opened it.

Hal popped into view, a chagrined smile on his face. “Ah, Milaro, Malakai, and Nishpa, good to see you. Can’t stay. This is one of the two, three, or seven wars I have to take care of right now. Just wanted to let you know that Kajaro is down to one life now. We figured it out.”

~~

ooooooo

getting spicy!

Much love

KT