LSRO: Chapter 117 - A Faint Hint of Bells (Patreon)

I know right? Surprise Chapter.

See, the thing is. I finished drafting book 2. And I want to just get it out here for you to see!

This is the 2nd last chapter and I'll give 118 a go over and share it tomorrow. So book 3 should start on Monday :D

And, this means that the Librarian Tier will now be 12 chapters ahead of RR

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Chapter 117

A Faint Hint of Bells

Quinn clutched the copy of Honour Among Pies: Regeneration at its Finest in one hand, while she opened the door to the Library with the other. 

"Library, I need you," she said softly, placing her free hand against the door of one of the Desilish cottages. She wasn't entirely certain if that was how other people accessed the Library, but it was the way she felt came easiest to her to access the power she needed to open the gateways. Like a strange synergy had been reached.

She brought Jasper and Savinth with them, so they might rectify standings, and stepped through the door and into the great hall. 

It was busier than Quinn expected. There was a line of about a dozen people waiting to return books. Jim and Bob, the aracnio twins nodded in her direction while they supervised some of the newer assistants whose names were completely escaping her right then. She could sense more than feel that there were other doorways opening, even now, allowing patrons to enter the Library.

Energy pulsed around her instead of draining from her. It was a refreshing change.

Quinn walked up to the desk, book still tightly tucked under her arm. 

"It's about time you got back," Link said without even looking up from his work. "Why are you so late? She didn't try to..." But his voice trailed off as soon as he noticed that Savinth was standing directly next to her.

Quinn took that time to inspect the two people she'd brought with her. 

Name: Jasper Agen

Species: Alyenarvor

Affiliation: Desilish 

Current Relation to the Library: Strained. 

Quinn raised an eyebrow and muttered under her breath."Well, no shit, Sherlock." Then she moved on to

Name: Savinth

Species: Human Genome Type

Affiliation: None

Relationship with the Library: Book Status - Overdue, fine to be levied.

Quinn had to suppress a grin at the latter. She had promised she'd fine them both after all.

"Good to see you Savinth," Link said, very obviously not meaning a word of it. 

Savinth shrugged. "Good to see you too, Lynx. Maybe next time. Just let me keep the book."

"No," the manifestation said, and turned to Jasper. "I remember you," he said. "Didn't you used to come with your grandmother?"

Jasper scowled, but it softened. "I remember you too."

Lynx's eyes narrowed. "How did you come to have the book?"

"Long story, Lynx," Quinn cut in. "Don't have time for that now. I'm going to reactivate Jasper's ability to enter the Library of her own accord."

"What do you mean?" He paused. His eyes flickered. In fact, his whole body flickered for just a split second, and he looked at Jasper, and he said, "How did that happen?"

"I always thought you knew," she said, and shook her head. "Is it something that can be rectified?"

"Of course," Quinn said, and instructed the console simply to reverse the banning and give Jasper the access of regular patrons again.

"As simple as that?" Jasper asked, her eyes widening in surprise.

"Oh yes, we don't want to bar people from knowledge. Not ever, but there are some people who..." Lynx paused. "I believe the right phrase would be: are dicks. People who just want to ruin everything for everyone else." 

Jasper laughed, and it was actually a very festive sound. 

Quinn couldn't help but smile. "Okay, give me a minute, and we will go and get that starweed for you. 

"Thank you." Jasper was glancing around, her eyes practically as big as saucers as she took it all in. Like memories were coming alive.

Jim and Bob scuttled over momentarily. "Oh, what's all this," Jim said. "Why are you going to get star weed?" Bob continued.

"We use it in a lot of our recipes," Jasper offered. "It's always been one of our staples.

Jim and Bob studied Jasper for a second before a large smile broke out over their faces. "You're one of the Desilish." Bob said. "I haven't seen your kind for hundreds of years." Jim finished.

Jasper raised an eyebrow, and Quinn had to cut in yet again. "So glad we could all have this little chat, but I have things to do and I think one of the assistants needs your help." 

The Aracnio brothers inclined their heads and moved back over to the other side.

"Sorry about that." Quinn said brusquely. "Now, I'm sure I said I have a fine to levy. You both will have to donate energy, and I'm going to make you stay after I give you the starweed, get you settled, and get you donating straight into the system, okay?"

Savinth laughed and said, "Fine, I've got energy to spare." 

"That's it, that's the fine?" Jasper asked. 

"I mean, I can give you a worse one if you want it." Quinn said.

"No, I am perfectly happy with giving you energy for whatever reason you need it." Jasper added hurriedly.

"Very well, follow me so we can get the starweed sorted." Aradie hooted in Quinn's ear and flew off, probably headed to visit her owl friends or check in on the little one who had had his memory adjusted. She really preferred to have Aradie's company. It always made her feel that little bit safer.

"Come along in here." She walked past the kitchen, even though she really wanted to see Cook, and ended up in Farrow's area. "Farrow, I'd like you to meet Jasper."

"Ah," Farrow said, "you are an Alyenarvor. You have an amazing affinity for wildlife and plants. It is my honor to meet you."

"Thank you," Jasper said, her cheeks actually coloring. Savinth crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, scowling slightly.

"You could be nicer," Quinn muttered under her breath. "You're the whole reason we had to come and do this."

"If they'd have just given me the recipes they promised, I wouldn't have taken their starweed." Savinth grumbled. 

"What I want to know is, what you did with it, did you waste it?" Quinn asked, still overall very confused. 

Savinth didn't answer but at least had the good grace to look extremely guilty.

"Farrow, this lovely lady, needs a seeding plant of starweed so that they can restart their crop as the previous one was," she gave Savinth a very curt sideways glance, "unfortunately, destroyed."

Farrow let in a little gasp of air. "Destroyed? Oh, that is a shame. I do have starweed. I can probably spare you about three bunches, but no more. Including roots, will that be sufficient?"

"That would be amazing," Jasper said, the relief in her voice was practically palpable.

"Fantastic. You can leave these two here with me, Librarian. It will take some time to extract the starweed so that we might avoid damaging the root system."

"Great. I have way too much to do to hang around here. Please, feel free to make yourself at home, Jasper. The Library welcomes you back."

"Um, Librarian," Jasper said, walking up to her just as Quinn was about to leave, "thank you."

"Oh, you're welcome." Quinn wasn't entirely sure how she should feel about being thanked for helping. But she definitely liked that nice warm, fuzzy feeling. Still clutching the book she'd retrieved under her arm, Quinn hurried away from the terrariums and magical hydroponics area and headed toward the kitchen. 

She popped her head around the doorway to the cooking prep area. "Cook!"

Cook looked up at her and a smile broke out across their face. Well as much a smile as they usually managed anyway. "Librarian, it is good to see you."

"Thanks, look what I've got." Quinn held up the book, visible even from the satchel she'd placed it in to make sure it didn't contain lingering chaos energy. If possible, Cook looked even happier. "I'm about to go and see what I need to do to activate the new branch."

"Excellent, I will finish preparations for the next meal and if it is permitted, I will come and join you."

"I'd really like it if you'd do that," she said, meaning every word.

"Thank you. Librarian," he said, "are you hungry?"

"You know, I am a bit peckish," Quinn said.

"Then I will prepare something and bring it with me when I come."

"Appreciated, Cook. Thank you." Quinn dashed out toward the check-in desk and clambered up into the side that people weren't lined up in front of.

"I'm really glad you retrieved it without too much trouble," Lynx said as she approached.

Quinn slammed it down on the desk and struck a victory pose. 

Malakai raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to pummel it through the desk?"

"No, I'm not. I'm just, I'm excited. We did it, we have all the books and if the system is correct, we have all the plants." Quinn could feel that excitement bubbling up inside. She turned to Lynx. "That means we can open it, right?"

"Well, yes, yes it does. Just let me look at it." Lynx pulled it out of the satchel. The book had no telltale sheen advising them of a chaotic presence infesting the book, which made Quinn heave a slight sigh of relief. 

She looked over it with Lynx. "Well, what do you think?"

"I think it's a book, Quinn." He rolled his eyes.

"You can be so damn literal sometimes," she complained. "I mean, can we do this?"

"Yes, but it's not just us standing here going, 'Oh, please, Library, open the branch.'"

"Then what do we need to do?"

Lynx smiled. "Well, we're going to need the supervisory golem. I've already sent for Milaro. We should probably have Narilin on hand just in case some of the books are damaged inside." He frowned as if he was trying to remember how exactly to go about all of this since he'd not done it in so long. 

Trying to be helpful, Quinn prodded him. "How does a branch separate itself? Is it like sealed off into a little bubble and we have to bring it back from it?"

He blinked at her, like he wasn't expecting the question. "It's inside the Library's pocket dimension if you will..."

"That's not entirely accurate..." Malakai began but was silenced by a glare from Lynx.

"Have you been here for most of existence? No, you haven't. Let me do this."

Malakai held up his hands in surrender. 

Lynx continued. "There are prerequisites and power requirements, energy requirements, book and plant requirements, which we've all met now, yes, but we need all of those in order to reopen what we pretty much decommissioned. It was shut down in great haste and will likely be in a similar way as the main branch was when you first arrived."

"Great," Quinn said, not really meaning it. Still, at least now it wasn't just Quinn and Lynx. They had a whole staff to help them begin to deal with the next branch. Misha, she summoned the supervisory golem a split second later.

Misha appeared almost immediately. 

Quinn turned to Lynx. "I'll let you worry about fetching Narilin and Milaro, Cook will be on their way very shortly with some food for us, which I'm sure we'll all love."

"Just one thing," Lynx said frowning as he looked at something on the console in front of him, "why was Jasper banned, Quinn? When did you do that?"

"It wasn't me. Kora banned Jasper like a thousand years ago." Quinn sighed, and hoped she could avoid going over the whole story, at least right now.

"What?" Lynx said, "that doesn't even make..."

But Quinn cut him off. "Let's get this branch open first, shall we? We can talk about that later, like everything else."

Links grinned, "Fine, I'll make sure to fetch the others." 

She knew it would take him approximately three minutes to blink in and out of the areas and have the conversations he needed to have. She turned her attention to Misha. "How is Dale?"

"He has recovered all of his functions and will be operating at maximum capacity very shortly. I have, however, taken the liberty to activate the remaining five security golems. I've been doing one every day so as not to pull too much from the reserves."

"Thank you, Misha." Quinn smiled tightly. She knew Misha did a lot around the Library and wasn't sure where she'd be without the supervisory golem. "What did we end up doing with Tenejo?"

"He has been placed in stasis and is currently confined while we figure out the best way to formulate the prison dungeon, as you will."

"Dungeon?" Quinn wasn't sure how she felt about that. Heck, she wasn't sure how she felt about him still being alive. His only redeeming information was that she was convinced he held some knowledge that might help them. "He's in stasis?"

"Yes, and I currently have six security golems maintaining said stasis around him, allowing for two of them to still function with other parameters." 

"Isn't that overkill?" Quinn asked.

"Not necessarily. If you wish to keep our Serpensiril guest alive, then it is the only way to confine him." Misha answered and then hesitated. 

Quinn nudged them. "What is it?"

"I do believe the five newly revived security golems would greatly appreciate being named by you, Librarian. They deserve it."

Quinn grinned, glad that the names versus designation thing was now a given. "I'll get to that as soon as we've opened the branch, okay?" 

Misha flashed her a smile. There was always a faint hint of bells ringing somewhere when Misha smiled. It lit up the room, which was strange for a golem and yet for Misha, somehow completely natural.

"It's good to see you have things under control, Quinn." 

She whirled around to find Milaro standing there. An air of relief rushed out of Quinn when she realized how worried she'd been about him. "You know," she said, "I'm sorry I almost dropped you in danger."

Milaro chuckled, "No more danger than I'm usually in. I am quite certain I could have handled it myself, although there may have been some hefty damage done to the Library in the process." 

Quinn raised an eyebrow, realizing she had no clue just how powerful Milaro was. He was old, after all, and with age and access to copious amounts of magical training - well, she assumed there also went power. She didn't have the ability yet to gauge somebody else's power levels, but she was sure there was a book on that. It was yet another thing to rectify.

As Naralin approached, Lynx was already back behind the desk, leafing through Honor Among Pies.

"You know, Cook," Lynx said as the last member they needed arrived, "I think a few of these recipes in here would greatly assist Quinn."

"Definitely, Lynx." Cook handed what looked like a delicious sub sandwich to Quinn. She bit into it and it practically melted in her mouth. All sorts of salamis and spicy sauce. Oh, it was like they lived in her head and knew all of her food fantasies.

"Alrighty then," Quinn said, clapping her hands.. "Let's return the book, shall we?" Quinn scanned the ultraviolet light over it just to double-check and, when nothing was flagged, put it into the Library's system.

Culinary Branch Requirements: Met

282/282 Books Retrieved

287/287 Herbs, Plants, and Other Ingredients

Energy Level Required: Low

Mana Requirement: 3827

Energy Fuel Required: 3921

The Culinary Branch has met all requirements to be opened.

Do you wish to proceed?

Yes, or No

"Yes," Quinn said. 

And the Library shuddered in anticipation.

~~

WWEEEEEEEEE First branch is opened! Well... second if you count the Main Branch, right?

Much love

KT