LSRO: Chapter 307 - Maelstrom of Thoughts (Patreon)

Come on, if you had a chance to use the word Maelstrom, you would, right? Because it's freaking awesome.

Anyhu! Look at me. Chapters! I have a few that I've dictated in advance so I can have mother's day weekend off!

Keep in mind when I say dictated in advance... you do NOT want to see what that means hahahaha. I still need to tidy those before they're fit for human consumption.

Hope you're all doing wonderful. Another 5 days before I see my surgeon. Weeeeeee

Enjoy!

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Chapter 307

Maelstrom of Thoughts

The first thing Quinn noticed was the surrounding darkness had a green tinge to it. She could hear a dripping sound, as if someone had left a tap on, overflowing for days, and the drips were falling into the widespread puddles that had been created. In a way, it was almost like a clock ticking. 

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. 

Steady. 

Constant. 

Slow. 

Yet ever gradually slowing more. The drips echoed through her mind, through this world they found themselves in. The silence between each drip and tick was deafening. It built up until Quinn thought her ears might burst. It gave her a distinctive sense of time running out. She didn’t have a lot of it right then for contemplation, for figuring out the mind of a dying man, snake... serpensiril.

Images swirled around them, around her, brightening in areas, giving the darkness and dim surrounds a sudden glimpse of life. 

Chaotic. 

Hectic. 

And sad. 

The images held flashes of people she’d seen and others that she’d never known, likely never would. They flew past her so fast that she couldn’t grasp all of them. As far as she could tell, Milaro was genuinely pulling all the memories Kajaro gave them access to into his mind as fast as he could to make sure that none of them slipped by, that they didn’t lose even one piece of information that could potentially be something they needed to know.

She guessed it was a bad idea to cross somebody and not kill them immediately. Especially when they had sensitive information about you and were likely to seek revenge if they weren’t dead. Images that flew past her vision included some of the people they were trying to stop or prevent from destroying the universe. General everyday sort of stuff as well. Kajaro and Dravishk in heated arguments multiple times until one of them settled and made Quinn pay closer attention.

Demanded her focus.

Kajaro and Dravishk stood in the middle of a room of some sort. It didn’t seem to have any type of furniture in it, and it was small and secluded. She got the sense from Kajaro’s memory that it was secure and nobody could hear what they were talking about. Dravishk, in his mostly human form, appeared to be highly agitated, irritated. In the back of her mind Quinn thought he seemed rather mundane. Nothing like the beauty Drukala was in her human form...

Even his words sounded impatient. “If Korradine does what she said, she would...” 

Kajaro raised one of his eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t she?”

“It could be a reverse trap,” Dravishk said. “Or else maybe it’s for her amusement.”

“You don’t really believe that,” Kajaro said.

“No, I don’t. This is what she was groomed for, after all. The entire species agreed on it.”

 Kajaro actually laughed. The sound set Quinn’s spine on fire. “You make it sound like it was against her will.” 

Dravishk let out a strange grimace and scoffed. “Hardly. She practically dragged us into this.”

“Not necessarily,” Kajaro said. “You’ve been on this kick for a very long time and don’t you forget it. Don’t go being complacent.” 

She could feel his irritation with his collaborator. After all, in Kajaro’s mind, they were both as in charge of this as the other. Oblivious to how Kajaro currently felt, Dravishk carried on. “Her sacrifice will mean nothing if a Librarian remains to take her spot.”

Kajaro shrugged. “True, but if the Library is truly destroyed, would it even be able to resurrect or be resurrected by a Librarian? Will it even matter?”

“If there is any part of my sibling left,” Dravishk said, “then it can be resurrected. It can be re-established. We don’t want that.”

“True,” Kajaro frowned, “would definitely interfere with the spread of chaotic magic again.”

“It’s an imperfect science,” Dravishk said. “Either way, as long as we can get in there and modify what we need, then...” But the image stuttered as if it was an old television with bad reception. Lines began to grow across it and she could no longer hear. Had it been modified? Had Kajaro hidden it? Was this another memory tampering that the Serpensiril wasn’t aware of? Or maybe Quinn was just being paranoid.

A smoky grey mist began to spread all around and through, touching on some of the images, infecting them. That’s when she realized that Kajaro was probably much closer to death than they’d realized. And this was simply the brain fog that came with that. As the images began to rush past her again, some now with frayed edges, she realized the dripping had slowed significantly. Darkness crept at the edges of everything. Even though the images continued to bombard both her and Milaro’s mind. The tick-tocks grew even more lethargic. Slow, like blood pumping sluggishly through veins. More and more images passed through her. More and more memories simply shooting past. She knew, instinctively, that they would be contained in her mind as well. In some compartment that she’d automatically begun to place them in.

And then another one shot to the fore. This was crinkled around the edges, as if he hadn’t really wanted to withdraw this. Perhaps it was in for a penny, in for a pound. Because some of the images she’d seen had shown representations of Sarila, Kajaro and Dravishk in one room. 

But the one that began to speak to her was only of Sarila and Kajaro. She seemed on edge, snappy. Her bark-like brow furrowed. Her hand clutched at the hem of her sleeve, worrying it, fraying it. “We can’t keep doing this. They’ll suspect us.” 

Kajaro tried to soothe her. “Just keep playing the daughter and grandfather. Make sure you blend in. Be friends with their friends.”

“You expect me to lower myself to this?”

“You agreed to it,” Kajaro said, his tone no longer nice. “There are only two ways this can happen. This one is more difficult. You said you could handle it.”

“Fine,” Sarila said. “I can. I just don’t want to.” He ignored her protest and carried on.

“The Balisor infection is imperative.”

“I know.” Sarila glared at him. “But the destruction?”

Kajaro sighed, interrupting her. “I don’t have any clue if the destruction will work yet. I can’t even tell if the shutdown is going to work. So this is just us hedging our bets.”

Sarila actually laughed. “Don’t you worry. I’ll see to it. I can keep up my end of the bargain.”

Kajaro watched her for several seconds, confusion clouding his thoughts. He couldn’t tell if he could trust her. He couldn’t tell if all the plans that he’d made were coming to fruition, or whether they were going to fall down around him spectacularly. It all weighed and came down to whether or not Korradine could execute the plan the way she’d promised she’d be able to. Having contingencies in place was only good business sense. He flashed her a grin that he didn’t mean.

“Either the bomb eventually works, or we simply take control of the whole Library and work from there. It’s a good plan, if we can make it work.” Sarila sounded more confident this time.

Kajaro nodded slowly, agreeing with Sarila. And yet, at the same time, he wasn’t sure if he wanted the path of least resistance and more death, or the path where he could control every single outcome.

The sound and recollection began to fizz again, as if somebody had dropped sherbet into water, creating that strange bubble effect that left residue everywhere. The water next to the vision began to shimmer, even as the images themselves began to fade, as if the shore was shaking, sending ripples back toward the centre, disturbing the pictures. 

Misremembering.

Unremembering.

Fading. 

The dripping had all but stopped.

Pressure built up in Quinn’s head, as more and more of the images made their way into her mind in a last second mad dash. It was as if Milaro and Kajaro were trying their best to make sure nothing went unheard or unseen, so that all of them were contained within their two beings to sort through and figure out a way to not only preserve the Library, which admittedly was Quinn and Milaro’s aim, but also perhaps to stick it to those people who came after Kajaro the moment he was actually vulnerable. The moment where throwing more and more waves of people would eventually kill him because he didn’t have lives to spare anymore.

Quinn didn’t like Kajaro. 

None of the memories that she’d seen inclined her toward that in any way whatsoever. However, she wasn’t partial to people being as cowardly as his former allies. She might do a lot to protect a secret, but she didn’t think she’d kill. It might be a moral high ground for now, but she hoped it was one that she could maintain. Turning on an ally seemed so low.

She could feel Milaro at her side, within Kajaro’s mind, as well as next to her out in the real world. There was a heat, a steady thudding of his heart, something tangible that could rip her out of this strange world she found herself in. Milaro had been right. She definitely had so much more to learn about the mind and the magic that she could do within it. She wanted to devour every single book as soon as she could when she got back. Advanced level for the taking.

Quinn didn’t like feeling this out of her depth, feeling at the mercy of Milaro’s good nature and good will, that he wouldn’t allow her to get hurt. She wanted to be able to fend danger off herself, whether it was imagination, mental-based, or physically tangible.

Kajaro’s consciousness shook, fracturing, which was when Milaro reached for Quinn’s hand and tugged her with him, proving to be her anchor back in the real world, as they fell out of Kajaro’s head. She came out of the memory share, gasping for breath, momentarily blinded by how bright the whiteness of the room appeared to her after the dim and dark nature of his gathered memories. Her head pounded, and she knew, without a fraction of a doubt, that Milaro had tugged her out of those thoughts with the bare minimum of time to make it.

The next thing she saw directly in front of them was Kajaro. Blood settled on his lips, dripping down in the strange greenish-black hue. It was sluggish now, no longer poured freely, and his eyes were almost completely glazed over. She liked him even less after seeing his thoughts, but she did admire that soul of vindictiveness to pass on as much information as he could to the enemies of, well, those who were now also his enemies.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” she muttered under her breath.

“What are you saying now?” Malakai asked.

She shook her head as she watched the way lifelessness entered Kajaro’s eyes and the last breath pushed from his lungs. A grey hue began to settle over his deep green scales, which was alarming considering how long it took for humans to actually look like they were dead and not just sleeping. One glance at Kajaro right now would let anybody know he was no longer among the land of the living.

She liked that finality, visceral evidence that death had come upon him, not a guessing game where you tried to take a pulse, where you tried to feel with a mirror to see if they were still breathing. It was a stark contrast to how she’d perceived him in life, larger than evil, and despicable.

She backed away and groaned, her gaze falling on the only other opponent in the room who had managed to survive their attack. And the spinoboli’s eyes were closed, breath coming evenly, but its wounds were still obvious, which meant that this spinoboli didn’t have any personal health regeneration. Quinn supposed they should be glad for that. It was still encased in Milaro’s bindings, meaning Hal could interrogate as soon as he got back.

But right now, Quinn stretched and groaned, Milaro echoing her. He looked haggard, tired, drained. And she thought she probably did, too. Even checking her own energy levels, they were far lower than she would have liked. Just several hundred left, nothing on the thousands that she usually had.

The others watched them expectantly. Malakai spoke. “What? Anything?”

Quinn sighed, pushing her pounding head out of her mind. “Lots of things.”

“And I take it, too much to share?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not necessarily that. It’s too much information. This is going to take Milaro and I am age to leaf through.”

And as they left the room to head up in the palace, so they could use one of the three doors to go home, as Quinn’s energy was seriously flagging. All she could think of was that she was lucky that this time, she was taking all of her group home with her.

Alive!

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Yeah that's a bit of a callous point at the end, right? Go me.

Much love

KT