Demesne Patron EX SS 1 - Little Lori Goes To The Library (Patreon)

Lolilyuri arrived home with a sigh, smelling like sawdust, sweat, and the weird incense the owner of the lumberyard she worked at liked to use in the curing shed. She'd never noticed it having any particular effect, except to make her smell funny after a shift of kiln duty, but the owner swore it was traditional. "Ina, Nanay, I'm home!" she said tiredly, putting her shoulder bag on one of the pegs next to the door, followed by her hat and leather rain mantle, and neatly putting her staff on the rack for it. Fortunately, they'd both already dried from the downpour earlier. "I'm just taking a quick bath, then I'm going to the library, okay?"

"You're not staying for dinner?" her Nanay said, poking her head from their apartment's small kitchen. "I made your favorite."

Lori could tell. Their little apartment was filled with the smells of stewing mushrooms, and just a hint of soft bug meat. Her stomach ached for the food… but she had things to do. At sixteen and on her fifth year of school, she was needing to do more research from external materials. They didn't have enough money to buy they books, so she needed to borrow them at the septant's library. Given she wasn't the only one in her school who needed the books, and her school wasn't the only one in their septant, never mind the entire Dungeon Capital, she needed to get to the library early to have the best chance of securing the books she needed.

"Please save some for me?" she said regretfully. "There are reference books I really need to get. It can't wait."

Her mother sighed, but fondly. "Ah, my responsible daughter. Fine, we'll keep it in the cold box, you can heat it yourself."

"Thank you Nanay," Lori said, heading to her room to at least get a more presentable shirt. Her trousers would do, since all they had was a little sawdust, but her shirt was sweaty. She didn't need the smell following her around.

Her bath was quick and haphazard. She was in a hurry, so she didn't have time to gather her own water from the air to save a few beads, and had to use water from the building's internal plumbing. A quick soap and scrub, and she was pulling her clothes back on again, her short hair refreshingly cool and clean after a wash. Lori made sure to change her socks, since the pair she'd been wearing were sweaty and hot, slipping into a nice, thick, fluffy pair that felt so good before she slipped her shoes back on.

At some point her Ina had gotten home, and was sitting at the table reading a newsletter, clearly relaxing before moving on to take a bath.

"Lori! Good, the bath's free. Come here, give your mother a kiss," her Ina said, putting down her newsletter and holding out her arms with a tired smile. Lori dutifully gave her Ina a hug and a kiss on the cheek, welcoming her home, then quickly moving to head out.

"Ina, Nanay, I'm going!" Lori called to her mothers as she slung her bag back over her shoulder, then took a moment to make sure the strap was under instead of over her leather rain mantle. She checked inside to make sure the list of books she needed was inside.

"Be home as soon as you can," her Nanay called from the kitchen, where the food smells had gotten more intense and delicious.

"Don't get into any fights!" her Ina added, picking up her newsletter again. Her Ina had a lot of newsletters, mostly from foreign demesnes. "And I don't mean 'don't get caught'!"

"But not getting caught works too," her Nanay said as Lori grabbed her leather hat and put it back on. It was a simple bit of millinery, with a wide brim and a tall cone that slumped just the right way to be fashionably well-used, despite it being fresh from the shop.

"Litha!" her Ina exclaimed. "Stop teaching her bad habits!"

"What? If they can't catch her, they can't charge her, Alicia," Nanay Litha said.

"What did I JUST say about teaching her bad habits!"

Lori rolled her eyes tiredly at her mothers. Still, it was with a slight smile on her face that she stepped out of their apartment, down the many stairs to the ground floor, and out into the streets of Taniar Demesne. It was later afternoon and the streets and skies were clear of the usual thick bustle of people with places to go and things to do, at least until the hour before sunset. Still, that meant there were still a sizable crowd of people on the streets and occasional flier on some errand or another, and Lori soon joined them.

Unfortunately, as she was a mere initiate Whisperer not even fully halfway through her education she did so on the ground, having to travel by putting one foot in front of the other and repeating until she got to where she was going. Oh, but when she was stronger and could be licensed for it, she'd show them! She'd fly on airwisps all the time and never have to deal with walking or public transportation again!

She realized she had started cackling maniacally when people started swerving away from her. Flushing, she pulled her hat down on her head and took a detour down a pedestrian-only sidestreet she hadn't been planning on walking, as it wasn't on the direct path to her septant's public library, hoping by the time she got back on track all the people who'd seen her were sufficiently in front or behind her.

To either side of her, buildings rose, made of Whispered stone or Deadspoken wood, all filled homes and offices and shops, while the streets had a the smooth, glassy look of molten stone that had been cooled instead of merely reshaped after being transported, a sign it had been made by a Binder in the distant past. Members of the Banking Authority frequented restaurants and cafes, having meetings with contacts or a quick snack between walking to meetings. This close to the septant's magic and research university, there were many students and young trade professionals in evidence. Students like herself inspected stalls selling glass stock, metal ingots, bones, live plants and small domesticated animals for tool binding and flesh crafting, while older students or professional wizards perused premade glassware and precision tools. A smith sold cutlery, basic home tools and offered lessons on drawing your own wire next to a narrow, cramped stall that advertised relaxation vistas for those wishing for a taste of nature in the heart of the demesne, while a job-placement office was full of prospective hopefuls wishing to get paid for barely-learned wizardry or seeking an entry-level position in one of the septants workshops.

Idiots. Better to look for the job directly, there's never a lack of need for wizards in manufacturing industries.

The wide streets thronged with people. Most wore wide-brimmed hats and either leather mantles or rain coats. The weather was unpredictable in Taniar Demesne, and the Dungeon Binders who had ruled had long since stopped bothering to warn people if a downpour was coming. So they all dressed like they expected one and were seldom disappointed. Lori could tell the foreigners because they carried flimsy tourist trap umbrellas or walked about with hooded cloaks. Some didn't even carry any rain protection at all, as if thinking it would be sunny all day!

As she walked, she practiced her breathing exercises, taking in magic, cycling it through her lungs, and releasing it into airwisps around her, so she was surrounded by a small, trailing cloud of bound air. She wasn't as good as her professors at taking in all of the magic contained in every breath, but she was certainly much better than when she had started, and ahead of most other in her batch. It was supposed to be easier and more efficient outside of the demesne, in the Iridescence, since the Dungeon Binder already had prior claim to magic and wisps in the demesne, and others using it was at their sufferance. Still, it was possible to be better at taking in magic, and so Lori practiced, even as she kept an eye out for thieves and pickpockets and Horotracts and thieving pickpocket Horotracts. In the corner, a group of prostitutes getting an early start rang their bells with exaggerated wrist and ankle movements, not looking directly at anyone but making it obvious they wished to be noticed.

She stepped around the group as she rounded the corner and resumed her course toward the library. Here, the streets thronged with both people and vehicles propelled by bound tools and undead beasts. Most were large transports carrying food, goods, materials or people, but some were smaller, one- or two-person vehicles pulled by a living beast, signifying their status as the wealthy, the important or at least those deluded into thinking they were either one.

The only one truly wealthy or important was the Dungeon Binder. Everyone else was simply for their convenience.

Lori considered taking one of the public transports passing by. But the library wasn't that far, and she didn't have all that many beads on her person. With a sigh and a regretfully look at a passing transport that still had some available seats, she continued walking.

Once more, she looked up enviously at the sky above, and the wizards flying through it. Whisperers flew on intense updrafts of air, wearing cloths anchored at strategic points across their bodies to catch the air and give them more lift. Mentalists moved past at a more sedate pace, seemingly supported by nothing, while Horotracts seemed to fall sideways gracelessly, the positioning of their bodies seemingly irrelevant to how they were flying. One day, she'd definitely learn how to do that and she'd never have to walk anywhere again!

She just barely managed to keep herself from cackling.

It rained twice by the time she got to her destination. The Fourth Septant Public Library was a building that had once been some sort of stately impressive structure designed by some famous home-demesne architect that had been made to look impressive and serve as a library. It had probably failed in the first, since Lori had never been impressed when she looked on it, and it had definitely failed in the second. For a structure that was as tall Lori's apartment building, which had over seven floors of apartments and communal spaces, the fact that the library had had only four levels, including the basement, was a travesty. High, vaulting ceilings, while impressive to… well, probably some other person with an architectural fetish, were just a waste of space when the library only had shelves three paces high, which was not even halfway to the ceiling.

The people running the library had tried to compensate by stuffing in as many shelves as they could, resulting in the spaces between the shelves sometimes being only one person wide, too narrow for the book carts the library's workers used to return the books. This resulted in surprise dead ends and blocked aisles, meaning people had to go around whole lengths of shelving. And while the shelves were very high, they were very long.

Really, the only thing keeping the place from being an impromptu crematorium were bindings placed and maintained by the Dungeon Binder on any government building that kept firewisps from being used for anything but temperature maintenance, preventing any sort of open flame from occurring in the building. Lori had once worked here, maintaining the bound lightwisps that gave the building its illumination, under the theory this would give her more time to find necessary reference books. This theory was quickly proven to be horrible mistaken, and she'd put that past behind her. .

She had to check in her hat and mantle, as the library had no bindings controlling humidity. Her staff was inspected and allowed in once they saw it didn't have any coal charms. It was a new staff, made from a hardwood scrap she'd been allowed to take from the lumberyard, and all it had was some wire wrapping for better conducting her magic and will, and a few charms containing vibrating pieces of quartz.

Heading toward the map of the library, she checked the reference books on her list and headed towards the Wisp Sciences section first to pick up a book on fluid mechanics and how they affected wisp manipulation.

When she got there, there was a large gap in the shelves where a lot of books were missing. There was only one book left, and even as she watched someone was already taking it. A glimpse of the cover and she recognized it as the book she needed. She recognized the one taking it too, a schoolmate who was too cheap to buy his own books and tended to spend his money new clothes for himself. With a sigh, she walked past that section, sat down, and began taking off her shoes.

As the other library-goer walked away with the book under his arm, Lori, her footsteps almost completely silent on the cold stone floor because of her thick socks and shrouded in a cloud of airwisps to stifle other sound, snuck up behind him and gently brought down her staff on the back of his head, even as she willed the lightningwisps stored in her staffs quartz charms to release their power in a specific way.

The unfortunate schoolmate, his body jerking out his control, collapsed like a bad metaphor against a persistent critic.

Grabbing the book before it could hit the ground, Lori turned and slid on silent feet, grabbing her shoes on the way as she proceeded to lose herself down the aisles. She slid down to a spot several shelves down, hid the book and her staff in the bottom shelf, sat on her shoes, grabbed a random large book from the shelf, and proceeded to pretend to read it much too close to her face as she mimed holding a small book hidden behind it and giggling inanely.

There was a stifled curse and she heard the schoolmate struggling to his feet, his heavy shoes echoing on the stones as he ran towards her. he passed the aisle she was seated at, saw that book she was holding wasn't what he was looking for, and continued on.

Lori waited for several heartbeats, waiting for his footsteps to stop echoing nearby, then quickly slipped on her shoes, retrieved her book and staff, and nonchalantly began walking towards the stairs to look for books in another section for a while. As she was about to exit the aisle, she slowed slightly, staring at the shadow of a person holding a staff held high in both hands that fell across the stones in front of her.

Sighing, she turned and left by the other end of the aisle.

As she was making her way upstairs, she heard a commotion as someone accused someone else of assaulting them from behind with a staff…