LSRO: Chapter 113 - Sinking Sensation (Patreon)

Hiiii! Sorry this is a few minutes late today. My daughter had play performances all weekend and time got away from me.

Hope you enjoy the chapter!

It's sort of a minor cliffy... but not a bad one

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Chapter 113

Sinking Sensation

Quinn was surprised at how well she had slept. They hadn't done much the day before, really. Okay, so maybe fighting salamanders and a Drake did amount to much and she had reason to have fallen into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

She sighed as she waited for her teammates to arrive and glanced at Lynx, who was fiddling with something in the console. He was frowning, and the runes in his hair were swirling in an almost languid fashion.

"So, who has this 'Honour Among Pies' book? Do we know?" Quinn asked him, partially enthralled by the runes.

"Yes," Lynx said, refusing to make eye contact as he delved further into whatever had caught his attention in the console. It felt like deliberate avoidance. 

Quinn moved closer. "Are you going to tell me who it is?"

Lynx sighed and finally turned to look at Quinn. "Her name is Savinth."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Elaborate."

"Well," Lynx said, breaking the eye contact again, "Savinth is a human species... variant."

"And?" Quinn encouraged him.

"Well, they're old. Not because of heritage like you, though, and not like me. Their human trait is basically that the entire species is kind of cursed, so they have very long lifespans."

"Cursed?" Quinn said, her interest piqued. "Is there nothing that can break that curse?"

Lynx shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not one of them."

Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose and counted to three internally. "Okay. Got anything else?"

"Well, Savinth is very... a very acquired sort of taste. She's very opinionated and sometimes can be downright nasty."

Quinn blinked. "Like, try to kill me so they don't have to give me back the book, nasty?"

Lynx shook his head. "No, not like Kajaro nasty. Just sort of... their sense of humor might not be everybody's cup of tea and sometimes they can just be a little bit too blunt."

"Well, I can deal with that," Quinn said.

Lynx seemed to hesitate but then barreled straight on ahead. "Also, they kind of have reasons and persuasions about a lot of topics and they're extremely good at  manipulating you into a corner so that you loan them the exact book they want, even if maybe they should have returned other things first."

"Oh," Quinn said. "You mean like just a regular person who really wants something?"

"No, in a way that you won't probably notice until you're already doing what they wanted."

"Oh, so like in a magical mind magic way?"

"Vaguely more in a... no, that would probably be right," Lynx said after a moment's pause.

"Well my walls are pretty bloody solid. But I'll reinforce them a bit more. Anyway, talk to me..." Her voice trailed off as Malakai, Eric, and Aradie joined them. The owl swooped onto her shoulder, which was feeling much better today. It was no longer tender like it had been after being nearly burnt to a crisp and healed yesterday. "Oh great to see you guys. Nice and not on time."

Malakai shrugged. "If you pay me hazard pay, I'll start thinking about actually making it exactly on time. I might even be early."

"You'll have my respect forever?" Quinn offered.

Malakai laughed. "I think I've already got that."

"Dream on? No..." Quinn said. "That was mean. You're right, you kind of sort of already do."

"See, I knew I was right," Malakai said. "Anyway, you said Savinth is human."

Lynx nodded. "A human genome type E-31,785."

"Wait, did you just say there are 31,785 different genome archetypes of humanity," Quinn said. 

"You're over-complicating it." Lynx paused and continued. "But essentially you're correct."

"Okay, that's something for future me to bug you about," Quinn said. "So a human genome species that has magic?"

"Yes, not from Earth," Lynx clarified.

"I can work with that," Quinn said, and then a thought struck her. "Did I have a designation like that, a number?"

"No, you didn't. When you arrived," Lynx said, "A) We didn't have enough power to tap in and assign you anything and create an addition to the database. And B) now that we know your origins and that the Library is aware of them, you're not technically classified as human anymore."

Quinn had known that, and yet it felt oddly strange to realize she wasn't considered a human being. It was a strange sort of sensation that shivered down her spine at the thought. One of these days, she was going to sit down and explore that when she didn't have a to-do list three miles long.

"Do I have a species designation then?" Quinn said, mildly curious.

Lynxs hesitated again and the Library interjected, Your...species is currently still undergoing examination and evaluation.

"Oh, that's a really good way to totally avoid the question," Quinn said, "but I guess it's also accurate."

The Library continued. Now just pay attention to this next retrieval. 

"Do I need to worry about time dilation where we're going? Is there anything that we should know about that you haven't told us yet because you tend to do that?" Quinn crossed her arms and glared at Lynx, taking out her frustration at the Library on him just a little.

"Nope," Lynx said, shaking his head. "The Library has a solid level of power now so when I push you through this portal you should come out pretty close to where Savinth's last recorded location was. Now this could be a bit off because it has been, you know, a few hundred years but we should be pretty good."

And then Lynx turned to Eric and frowned. "It's probably a good idea for you to stay here, Eric."

Eric raised an eyebrow and if possible his wings seemed to flicker faster with irritation. "What's that supposed to mean?" He asked.

"Well," Lynx said, "Savinth isn't partial to imps for a multitude of reasons that are very personal and mostly extremely violent in her history."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Are you okay with that, Eric?"

He shrugged. "Not all of my bretheren are as dashing and charming as I am. Can't help it if you've just experienced the best."

Quinn's eyebrow raised so high it almost jumped off her face. 

He winked at her. "But, you know, I'm just gonna leave you to it. I'm gonna go get some food from Cook." And he was gone so fast Quinn didn't even have time to use her senses to see if he was lying.

Aradie hooted next to her. "Yeah, I thought that was a bit of bravado," Quinn said.

"But you should be fine with Malakai and Aradie," Lynx said. "Savinth shouldn't be hostile."

"Shouldn't?" Quinn asked.

"Yes, and we're gonna leave it at that. Okay, off you go. This is where you need to head." And he pushed an image toward Quinn's mind.

When Quinn, Malakai, and Aradie stepped through the Library doors, the world beyond it changed drastically from where they'd been. 

First of all, the door was flush with the ground, and Quinn didn't even need her hovering ability to save her from falling flat on her butt. Beyond the door were beautifully manicured little cobblestone pathes set inside of lush green grass with wooden borders separating the paths and streets from parks and sidewalk decorations. They weren't in a forest, but there were trees scattered everywhere. Huge trees, many with fresh blooms on them making it almost feel like perpetual spring.

It was a beautiful sight to behold. In fact, it sort of looked like what you'd imagine a cosy European village looked like several hundred years ago. Well, almost, if she disregarded the fact that this place had a fresh and not pre-plumbingh scent to it. That, and the purple hue to the sky didn't exactly scream Earth. Not to mention the gradually rotating, color-shifting sun in the sky. 

But other than that, definitely European village vibes.

Suddenly, somebody cleared their throat to the rear right of her. Quinn whirled around to the side and leaning against the wall that held the door they'd just stepped out of, was a human woman. Except her eyes were flecked with gold, all through the whites of the sclera, all through the color of the iris, and the darkness of the pupil. They were just mesmerizing eyes.

"Yeah, thought you lot might show up," she said, "Send me bloody darigháhnish."

She was about four inches taller than Quinn, and stood there, tapping her foot on the ground, waiting, with her arms crossed as she leaned against the building.

"Um, hi," Quinn said, unsure of exactly how to greet this individual. She couldn't understand how she knew, because she didn't inspect her, it's not like she was wearing a name badge, but Quinn was pretty sure this was Savinth in front of them. "I'm Quinn, I'm the current Librarian."

"Are you now?" Savinth said, looking her up and down, "You'll do, I guess. Alright, come on up the back."

They moved and began walking around the building, to where there was an outside set of stairs. Quinn turned and glanced at Malakai. Aradie still affixed to her shoulder, simply ruffled her feathers and made herself more comfortable. Savinth was still grumbling as they walked up the stairs, and ushered them into what was probably a loft apartment. It was quite spacious, considering the size of the adorable little Tudor building.

"Surprised they didn't send an imp at this rate," Savinth muttered as she closed the door.

Once inside the second story of the lovely little Tudor cottage, Savinth turned to Quinn, "And, just what are you? You're not human."

Quinn shrugged, because it was true, but she wasn't exactly sure how much she should be telling people, nor did she have any clue as to what, exactly, she was, "I'm somewhat human."

"Nah," Savinth said, "You look a bit human. For now, at least, I think."

Quinn desperately wanted to ask what abilities Savinth had that made her so certain Quinn wasn't human. But she thought that might be the height of rudeness among magic users in the universe.

"Anyway," Savinth said, "Do you guys want a drink? Something, anything?"

"A water would be great," Quinn said.

Savinth raised an eyebrow, "Yeah, water would be good anywhere, wouldn't it?"

"Yes?" Quinn said, not really understanding how she'd offended this other fellow human-esque person.

Once Savinth had placed a bowl of seed in front of Aradie, and two glasses of water on the table, Savinth cleared her throat, "Okay, I want you to tell me why I should give my book back to you."

"Because we're trying to open the culinary branch, and it's literally the only book missing that would enable us to do that." Quinn said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.

Savinth's eyebrows shot up, "Really, the branch is closed?"

"Yeah, the Library was closed for almost five hundred years," Quinn said.

"Wait," Savinth held up a hand, frowning. "I knew the Library wasn't letting me in to return the book, and I got pretty pissed off, I can tell you that. I thought my last conversation with what's her bloody name, Kora, Korradine, whatever, whoever she was, I thought she'd banned me. I wasn't going to give you the book back when I kept getting pinged for it. I tried to return this so many times before now."

"That seems to have been the case for a lot of people. They didn't believe the Library when it came back online. They thought it was gone." Quinn still felt waves of sadness at that thought.

"Oh no, no, I believed you were wanting your book back, I just..." Savinth trailed off, a thoughtful look in her eyes.

Malakai brushed his hand across Quinn's forearm to stop her from saying anything, and spoke, "I don't suppose you'd tell us what the conversation was that you had with Kora?"

"Well I mean, it's no secret, you probably have it in your security logs. I wanted this book and one of the restricted section books. She refused to give me the restricted section book, even though I'm in great standing, and have been for hundreds of years." There was a trace of deep frustration in Savinth's words.

"A restricted cooking book?" Quinn asked, suddenly feeling a strange stirring inside her. It was as if her Library attuned senses were waking up, trying to recall something.

"Yeah, right. She said it was only for specific people to take out and that I didn't qualify to have free run of all the culinary books." Now Savinth sounded angry.

Quinn tried to figure out the best approach. "Could you tell me which book it was? What sort of food it cooked?"

Savinth laughed, "Oh, I guess you probably already have it in the vault so you wouldn't have needed to retrieve it. Everlosst's mind-altering treats."

"Oh, it's not on our list," Quinn smiled, hoping it looked genuine, while her mind went into overdrive. That book wasn't in the vault. It had to be one of the missing ones. "It's good to know I didn't miss one in the branch reopening list."

Savinth nodded, hesitated for a second, and then spoke. "Okay, wait a second, the Library was shut for 500 years? I wasn't banned?"

"No, you weren't banned." Quinn laughed. "Why in the universe would you think you'd be banned?"

"Damn that Korradine, that pesky interfering... " Savinth ranted, her cheeks flushing with anger. 

"Did she do something else?" Quinn wished she could just automatically know everything the previous Librarian had done. There seemed to be layers to her machinations.

"Well she led me to believe that I wasn't welcome back in the Library. I already had Honour among pies when I went to try and get Everlosst's. She told me the likes of me shouldn't bother returning. She'd just recreate the book and write the copy I had off."

"Oh." Quinn said, feeling bad for the other human. "I guess that's why you wanted to know why you should give it back."

"Yeah. That right there." Savinth sighed. "So you see, I haven't exactly felt welcoming what with all the pings for the book."

"Speaking of which, Quinn said. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to let us bring it back so we can open the Culinary branch?"

"Sure. I mean, now we've cleared that misunderstanding stuff all up." Savinth hesitated. "Except. Well, you see..." she paused.

Quinn felt like her stomach was filled with lead.

Finally Savinth stood straight and looked Quinn square in the eyes. "I hate to tell you this but, Honour among pies, if you want that book back you're going to have to help me go get it."

Malakai's smile froze, and Quinn could feel his frustration. Aradie huffed in her ear. And Quinn plastered on a smile, despite the sinking sensation in her gut. "Of course we'll help. Do you remember where it is?"

"Of course I do." Savinth scoffed. "I didn't leave it somewhere accidentally, I just got annoyed, and I'd got my goodie out of it, and now the Desilish clan have been using it for a while and we might have had a falling out shortly after I loaned it to them."

Malakai groaned. "The Desilish clan? Seriously? Why didn't you just give it to a pack of wild salamanders? We'd have a better chance of retrieving it."

Quinn glanced around. "I take it this is bad..."

Savinth shrugged. "In my defense, I thought you'd banned me for asking about a book...And... on the bright side. At least it'll be full of magic when you get it back."

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TADAAA I actually adore Savinth

Much love

KT