LSRO: Chapter 300 - That'swhatshesaid (Patreon)

Soooo still at the convention. Managed to eek out some time. Have a panel in the morning at 10 so that should be fun.

Conventions are so inpsirational to me. Makes me want to work harder.

Now if only my arm would cooperate, we'd be golden,right?

~~

Chapter 36

That’swhatshesaid

Quinn didn’t dream. In fact, she fell into such a deep sleep that all she felt was comfort, safety, and a sense of belonging. It was wonderful, and she could have slept forever. Or at least until she was supposed to wake up.

A sense of wrongness wafted into her dreams, in through her mind, hinting at her to wake up. She struggled to do so, to push through the fog, and finally blinked her eyes open, disoriented in the darkness. 

Something felt off. A dire sense of wrongness about everything around her. She took stock as well as she could, sensing, realizing that she was in the Library. She wasn’t caught in a dream. She wasn’t in somebody else’s dream. Why was she awake?

Something hit her. A sense of unease so foul that it sucked her through what felt like a slimy sewer tunnel, from the tips of her ears, all the way through her body, right down to each individual toe. And frankly, the sensation elicited a scent like a sewer, too. Quinn pushed herself up, coughing, retching, feeling violently ill. Aradie even jumped down from the bedhead to sit next to her, cooing softly, looking up at her in concern.

“I’m okay,” she rasped out, unable to figure out just why her throat felt so spent and smoky and heated.

And then the alarm sirens blasted. The sound blared through her mind like a tornado siren, practically knocking around in her skull. It hurt to even try to think, to orient herself. But it wasn’t the Library alarms. No. Those alarms remained eerily silent. 

The ones blaring in her ears right about now were connected to Halschius. Apparently asking her to keep an eye on his home world it had been an omen. She’d thank Hal later for it. They blared in and around her. Top priority. Danger. Meltdown imminent. 

They were the panic inducing sort of alarms.

A meltdown being imminent, for a place that was pretty much a lava paradise, didn’t instill much home in Quinn. Not that it really mattered.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, hell.”

Before she could even realize she’d directed her body to do so, Quinn was up and diving for her wardrobe. In a matter of minutes she was dressed, dragged a brush through her hair, and called to Aradie to head down to her office, which, if she was being honest, had probably turned into more of a, you know, murder board situation room sort of thing.

That wasn’t as bad a situation as she had first thought.

Quinn was there. Milaro stumbled in shortly after her. Misha and Lynx already stood in the middle of the room. Dottie trundled in.

“Betty’s not here,” Dottie said. “She’s not on duty today.”

“Well, everybody gets a day off.” Quinn muttered absently.

“Oh, I wasn’t complaining,” Dottie said. Her feet tapped a soft staccato beat against the tiled floors, showing her nerves. “Not everybody can be a superellex futora. If you have to leave, I’ll make sure everything is taken care of at our end.”

“Thank you, Dottie.” Quinn still had an absolutely soft spot for the bench. She never thought this would end up their relationship. The talking bench, who almost threatened to bite her butt off when she first met it, so long ago now.

Quinn continued to flick through her HUD, pulling up every bit of information she had from the databases of Halschius. She frowned. “This doesn’t look good.”

“No, no, it really doesn’t,” Mal said, walking into the room. “Can we reach Hal?”

“I don’t know,” Milaro said. “I’ve tried. Nishpa’s tried. So far, nothing. Really depends on which world he had to go to. There are so many of them his siblings fight over.”

Quinn nodded. “This had to have been planned. They had to have known. Maybe, maybe the war declaration was a trap.”

Milaro considered her words carefully. “No, the wars of the Halschius siblings have been raging for millennia. I don’t think this specific one...”

“No, I mean the event that pulled him away from his home base today. I could have, maybe helped...” she wasn’t too sure about herself now, but Milaro looked at her, a fresh look in his eyes, like he was seeing her for the first time.

“You know, that would be a logical step to take,” he said. “Okay, maybe he’ll be a little easier to get. Maybe we can send somebody.”

And that’s when Eric flew into the room. “Send somebody to get what? You’ve got to get to Halschius. Those alarms aren’t screwing around.” He seemed ever so slightly panicked, which is how Eric showed he cared. The more snark, the more he liked you.

“It’s okay, we’re going,” Quinn said. They headed to the storeroom. Misha blipping in front of them to meet them there.

Misha clapped their hands and looked around at the group. “Time to get you all geared up.” But she looked at Quinn and frowned. “You can just adapt the environment. Remember to keep it in the correct order. Check for atmospheric influences, make sure the mana in the area is stable, and activate anything you need to help adjust.”

“Are you sure that’s wise, Quinn?” Eric asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be wise? I did it last time.”

“True, I’m just being over cautious.”

“What awaits us there?” she asked, her tone soft.

“It’s chaos.” His eyes smoldered, and he cringed. “Our soldiers are being overrun. They were already spread thin, what with the new threat looming. We’re being overrun by some of the factions. It’s a concerted effort.”

“Let me guess, something started inside the fortress?”

“Yes.”

“Would it be in a certain enemy of ours’ cell?” Quinn asked, pushing a little further.

“Yes.”

“I knew it. Doesn’t he realize he only has one life left?”

“I do believe that’s why he’s trying to escape,” Eric said.

“We can’t kill him,” Quinn said. “I still need answers. We can’t let him die before he gives them to us.”

“Wow,” Eric said. “Aren’t we feisty today?”

“I’m not feisty, I’m being driven and determined,”she said. “Don’t be so obnoxious,”

“Well, can’t say I agree with that,” he said. “I’m always obnoxious.”

Quinn laughed, because it was true, and her mood lifted somewhat. Finally, they were ready. It might have only taken them about fifteen minutes to get prepared, but Quinn felt like it had taken an absolute age. What all could have already gone wrong in Halschius in 15 minutes? What were they already screwing up?

“Do you think Hal’s okay,” Quinn asked Eric, as they lined up to take the nearest door into Halschius? If there was fighting raging there, it wasn’t the best idea to open the main doors of the Library, despite how much Quinn preferred to use them.

“I think he’ll be okay. Hal is made of, well, stuff you couldn’t even begin to imagine,” Eric said. “Or maybe you could. You’ve always had a pretty good imagination.”

Quinn laughed, but she could hear the nervousness in the sound. It was more the need to expel a noise.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s set the destination links.” She concentrated hard on the door and remembered Hal’s quarters they’d visited last time. He had a warded door in there that worked. They couldn’t afford to have their approach to his home seen. No doubt the attackers already knew about the portals, but she knew exactly where it was. She closed her eyes and prepared to project the image.

She finished her visualization and placed her hand flat on the door, channeling the precise image. A thrum echoed through the door and she opened her eyes, opening the door with a twist of her wrist. The handle was brass and felt hot to the touch.

“The handle is hot.” She said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

“That’s... unusual.” Eric said. “I’ve never had it be hot before.”

“That’swhatshesaid,” Mal muttered, under his breath, barely audible.

“Not the time,” Milaro admonished him.

All Quinn had to do was glance at the younger elf and she knew he was thinking that it was definitely the time because she could have cut the tension with the knife. She caught his eyes and gave a brief nod, hoping that he knew she appreciated it.

“Door’s hot too,” Eric muttered from closer to her ear than she realized. But she was used to the imp’s presence by now and managed not to jump.

“Is that a problem? Do you think it could be fire behind there?” The last thing she wanted to do was to open the door and unleash some sort of hellfire into the Library with all the damn books. Because that wouldn’t be a disaster or anything.

Eric shrugged uncomfortably. “Highly unlikely for that to happen. I think it wouldn’t let you open it if it was hellfire. I mean... it’d either melt or destroy his magic. Pretty sure just the heat regulation is off in his room. Likely the whole castle. It’ll be hot, but it’s nothing your dragon can’t withstand.”

Quinn nodded. He had a point. Reaching out her senses to double check. And while she was wary, no immediate panic came, no feeling of impending doom. She took a deep breath, turned the knob, and opened the door.

And with that, they stepped through the doorway and straight into Halschius.

The room was definitely not on fire, but it was hot as hell. Quinn’s scales slammed into place all over her body. She scanned the area while her friends adapted to the current climate.

With her senses reaching out, she could see the groups gathered in multiple places, but not on the upper levels. There were probably fifty people all told here. Way too many for her little group to take care of.

Keeping all the calm in her voice that she could. Quinn turned to the group and grimaced. “Not exactly sure what to do now. There are dozens of others out there... I’m open to ideas.”

She wasn’t even surprised when no one else had any.

~~

Slightly shorter than usual, but still good.

Much love

KT