LSRO: Chapter 119 - Still Marked (Patreon)

Hiiii! So! This is the first chapter of Book 3!

It's pretty rough, and I'm unsure if I'm completely happy with it. I did a time skip (ok ok 2 weeks is a huge time skip for me - you all realize this right?) Tomorrow's chapter will also likely be delayed but after that I should be back on my regular time schedule.

Hope you enjoy it!

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Chapter 119

Still Marked

Two weeks wasn't even remotely enough time for Quinn to power up and become invincible, but it was all the time she got. So, she had to make the best of it.

Quinn pulled her hair into a high ponytail as she stood at the top of the staircase looking out over the Library, ready for another new day. She glanced down to see Lynx standing at the bottom of the stairs. Instead of taking them two at a time and risking breaking her neck, she simply leapt over the railing and floated gently down to stand right in front of him. She grinned at him.

"Well, now you're just showing off," he said, but there was definitely a twinkle in his eyes.

"I've got magic. Why shouldn't I show off?" Over the last couple of weeks, she'd found a new appreciation for all things magic related.

Lynx disappeared for a moment and then tapped on her shoulder from behind her. 

Quinn laughed. "Fine. You can show off too. Anyway, what's up? Why'd you call me?"

"I need you to go over a few of the new timetables so we can allocate all the newly trained assistants into the roster." He'd moved to stand in front of her again.

"Can't you do that?" She said.

"Yes, I can do that and have done that, but I need you to look at it and tell me if you're okay with it." He paused and continued when she raised an eyebrow. "To finalize it."

"Wow, Lynx, copping some attitude there."

He raised an eyebrow. "You've been very busy, which is fine, but you can't always fob all of your responsibilities onto me. I have a few of my own."

"I'm aware of that," Quinn said and she really meant it. But she had been trying to play catch up on her magical affinities as well as on digesting all the information she'd absorbed since arriving. "Thank you for all your help while I've been training." 

"How are your powers feeling?" he asked. "Are you still feeling some of the affinities more than others?" Do you feel better equipped to defend yourself and the Library now?"

"Some of the affinities are definitely more viable than others. Not sure why. Library and I will have to figure that out. But I definitely feel ready to defend everything." She said the latter smugly and flexed her hand once. A sheet of very hard, very cold ice appeared around it that she had managed to render flexible. Underneath it was a tiny air pocket between her skin and the ice that protected her skin from ice burn. 

She'd learned so much in the last two weeks from compartmentalization theory to finding strength in dodging, parrying with mind magic, forceful mind segregation, telekinesis, and advanced telepathic techniques. Her favorite so far was the speed enhancement and control that she'd learned. Especially the speed as applied to elements that could allow her to instantaneously cause the blizzard she'd been using with the balls. The blizzard balls had been her own manifestation of that type of ability. And now she'd devoured three books with specific focus on blizzards. 

And then there was the ice, water, and air intermediate teachings. Not to mention the fact that Milaro drilled her every single day for the last two weeks on her mental protections, her mental retaliation, and her ability to mentally access the compartmentalization without turning into a cold sociopathic killer. Hopefully anyway.

Sadly she'd only just gotten into some aspects of chaotic magic theory in the last couple of days. Chaos affinities were largely found innately in creatures like imps that stemmed directly from it. She still had a lot to learn in that regard. Overall though, her progress had been fantastic. Now she just needed to keep practicing the practical applications.

"Yeah," Quinn said again, "I think the training has been going really well."

"Great. There's a lot to do. Let's go down the list. We have a very slight problem. The culinary branch is in full operation now and we've been able to alert all of the people who have overdue books from that specific branch."

"But that sounds like a great thing." Quinn interrupted, not understanding.

"And if you'll let me finish..." He continued, ignoring her interjection. "Word of mouth is finally starting to work. Before, it seems, many thought the books were malfunctioning and the Library wasn't actually back. Now, however, we're starting to get people coming in and bringing books back that are very obviously ours and that the Library recognizes, but those tomes are from the other, as of yet still closed, branches. Thus we are starting to build up a stockpile of books that require the branches to be opened in order to be returned in the first place."

"Oh," Quinn said. Given how many books were missing from just the Main Branch and now the Culinary Branch..., "do we have a lot of them yet?"

"Well, not so many, yet. It's only started over the last few days. We have..." he paused and checked something, "ninety-eight books so far, in four days. I can only assume it'll start compounding as time goes on.  While it's a good thing that people no longer think the return of the Library is just a rumor, right now, those books must be placed in holding until we can reopen those branches."

"But when those branches open, we'll already have a head start, right?" Quinn asked, clinging to that silver lining.

"True." Lynx frowned in thought. "Anyway, people who know they have a book or that their family has a book have started returning them."

"We should provide a specific storage room for those. Maybe off Narilin's infirmary?" Quinn asked, directing the question to the Library.

"Done. You also have yet to make time for me."

"Sorry. Been busy." Quinn cringed.

I'm aware.

Quinn sighed and spoke to Lynx again. "Doesn't that mean we're getting some of the original books back much quicker now?"

"Yes, you'd think so, wouldn't you? You'd be right too. It's just that I never foresaw the branches being closed at all, so this problem is yet another thing I overlooked." Lynx sounded positively dejected. 

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Well, I guess I should take care of the Library today and not necessarily jump head first into..."

"Jump head first into what?" Milaro said, appearing suddenly the way he seemed to sometimes. "You know, I've talked to you about all this head nonsense."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "You know, that's not what I'm talking about."

"I know, but I couldn't resist." Quinn smiled despite herself. Milaro and her were back exactly where they used to be. She was used to things now. Used to this ridiculous propensity she had for absolutely every single affinity out there. And the fact that she was the Librarian was a good feeling. Quinn decided she very much liked being part mystical creature.

"Before you get started on Library stuff, though," Milaro said, "Cadre, Siliqua, Harish and I need to speak to you." 

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "And just what do you need to speak to me about?" She wasn't trying to be facetious, there were many things they could talk to her about. From Library protections, to sequencing, Librarian mind protections to filtration chamber problems...

"The Serpensiril we have in stasis." He grinned at her. "It's still being maintained by six of your security golems."

"Oh," Quinn said. "Yes. Progress on that front?"

Milaro sighed. "I, unfortunately, am not able to, shall we say, dive into his mind anymore. There has been some alert aimed at my specific magical signature. Any time I get close to his mental space, shall we say, it's like he begins to react whether or not he is in stasis. We cannot afford for him to break out of that stasis given what happened last time."

"Can't you just kill the bastard?" Eric butted in, his wings making more of a hissing noise than their usual humming. It made Quinn wonder if the sound reflected his moods.

Quinn laughed. "We're not prone to killing people."

"He ripped his friend apart." Eric said flatly. "I would think he's classified less as people and more like a monster."

"First you love fining people. Now you don't mind killing them? Where does that end?" she asked.

But the imp didn't answer the question. He just barrelled on ahead. "Quinn, he's taking up too many of the Library's resources. Keeping him in stasis, if we can't get anything good out of him, is only going to make things worse in the long run."

Quinn blanched. Some of that was due to the fact that they had had this conversation about half a dozen times over the last two weeks and Quinn refused to kill him outright. Maybe it was because part of her remembered how close she came to almost doing it herself. There was a part of her that was terrified of killing other beings. If she started condoning it, how much would the line blur? How much would she change if life became inconsequential as a means to an end.

Self-defense was one thing, and she could twist Tenejo's previous action to mean his death would protect the Library and more... and yet that was a type of trauma she wasn't ready to deal with.

Yet.

"I know, I know," Eric said when her pause went on too long, "Stop being such a bloodthirsty Eric."

Quinn sighed and tried very hard not to laugh. She almost failed. "Anyway, we need to go over what we're doing with Tenejo."

Lynx piped up. "That's going to have to wait, Milaro. She has to check on the assistants and code them into the system."

"Fine. I'll see you this afternoon. We'll meet in your office to start with, and then we'll venture to the dungeon as it has been prepared by the Library."

Quinn shuddered ever so slightly. "You know I hate that word."

"Well, you can hate it all you want, but that's the reality of it, Quinn. The Library has enemies and we need to figure out who they are." Milaro's tone was grave, heavy even.

"I know..." Quinn sighed.  

"Sometimes I forget how young you are." He said kindly.

"Thank you, oh millennia-old grandfather figure of mine," Quinn said, and turned her attention back to Lynx, her back pointedly in Milaro's face.

Eric chuckled. "I still think we should be fining people more. I can't believe you gave the Culinary Branch a 30-day grace period."

"Eric, there's only like 20 days of it left. Start thinking up awesome, scrumptious fines, will you? And I'll even let you hand out the first one." Quinn waved him away, trying to focus on the rest of her conversations.

That appeared to mollify the imp somewhat. "Thank you," he said. "Also, my uncle will be delivering an information packet, I guess you could say, in person in the next couple of days."

"What?" Quinn said, already hating the day. It had gone from planned more training like the past two weeks, to a nope-you're-done-with-rest-here's-everything day. "Information packet? Can't he just send it?"

"No, my uncle... Anyway, you're going to get to meet him and you'll understand why I think he's just the best person ever." The sarcasm practically dripped off Eric's words as he darted away before Quinn could say anything else.

Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Hey," Lynx said, nudging her again. It was like he'd picked up Malakai's bad habit. "It's okay, let's just go and give all of these assistants the access they need and bump the other three supervisors you were going to bump up."

"How many new assistants did we end up with?" She asked, grateful to have Lynx request something specific.

"Oh, there's like a dozen of them."

"A dozen? I guess we have expanded a bit, right?"

"A lot," he said. 

"Oh," She smiled. "You'd have had to get people for the culinary branch and some to help cook in the kitchen, right?"

"Very yes, we are very close to filling those 200 seats in the dining hall on a semi-frequent basis now." By this time, they'd slowly walked to the reception area where the grand welcoming desk check-in desk stood. There were three lines leading from the right-hand side of it.

Quinn blinked. "Okay, is it just me or is the check-in desk bigger now?"

"Oh, it's not just you. Of course, it's bigger now. The Library accommodates what it needs to function." Lynx grinned, and pride in the Library practically oozed from his... manifested form.

"Oh," Quinn said. "That's kind of awesome."

"Yeah, it leaves us room to do all of the admin and be on hand if we're needed by the assistants and supervisors on the left-hand side, and it allows all the books to be checked in..." But he stopped short when Quinn gasped ever so softly.

"Wait," she said, "Is that... is that a line going back into the Library?"

"Oh yeah, those are inquiries. So the other side is now... Look, just come up." 

They walked into the check-in desk and Quinn realized it was more spacious inside too. There was a double-sidedness to it now. One where people could make inquiries and the other where people would check in their books.

"Oh," Quinn said, "I think I could get used to this." As they went over all the information of each assistant and transferred the information fully into the system, Quinn noticed several species listed that she'd not seen before.

"Wow," she said, "we reached a lot farther with the applications this time, right?" The names meant practically nothing to her without visuals though. She'd have to inspect all the new assistants in short order so she could understand them better.

"Yes and no. Three of these only have five of the prerequisite affinities that we require. They will basically just be taking returns, they're not going to be doing anything serious."

Quinn hesitated and then asked the question on her tongue. "I don't suppose you've found anyone who has the Library affinities?"

"Nope, not another one yet. Not even one." he said. There was a strange flicker over him. 

"How are your memories going?" she asked on impulse.

"Well, I have sat down with Cadre several times now. I've been back to the Core a few times and I think, you know, I think eventually it's gonna be all okay."

She watched him for a second and wondered if he realized how transparent he was being. She shook her head. "You don't need to make me feel better, Lynx, but I'm sure it will be okay. In the end..."

"Of course, I've got the amazing Quinn looking out for me, right?" His eyes sparkled again.

"Yeah, we'll get your memories back. Yours and the Library's." Quinn meant every word. "So, has there been any news on ways to get those missing books back sooner?"

"Look, you're probably going to have to talk to Siliqua and Harish. The Core is trying its best to figure out ways to trace the books that were once the Librarys'." 

"They're still marked as the Library's, so there's got to be ways to trace it using the name." Quinn frowned. "I mean we have tracking systems back home. There had to be a tracking system here too. Just magical."

"You would think so," Lynx said. "No, there... there is, and that's what we'll talk to Eric's uncle about when he gets here."

"Oh," Quinn said, "well that makes sense. So we're doing pretty good here."

"Yeah, if you can just allocate Deflin, Malice, and Argo to the supervisor role. That's all I really need from you right now. You can go and do whatever you need to."

"Lynx, are you okay?"

"I'm as well as can be expected right now, Quinn. Thanks for asking." He went back to work and Quinn felt, for just a moment, ever so slightly out of her depth.

It had been two weeks since they opened the new branch. And while they'd made some progress, they still had so much to do. They'd even had to resort to Eric's uncle in order to figure out the intricacies of the missing books and how to locate them. They also still had to figure out the Acheron pillar, although there were a couple of things she did need to talk to Misha about in that regard.

Finding the Serpensiril's allies was coming up a dead end. Everybody knew there was no way the Serpensiril had orchestrated this whole thing all by themselves. 

She was going to have to take Jasper up on her offer of seeing if she could divine for them. After giving Jasper back access to the Library, the woman had promised Quinn to come to their aid at any time should they need her.

The Librarian sighed and looked around her home. Books had always been such an integral part of her life. Now they had the perk of being magical. She made a small ice sculpture of the Kajaro in the palm of her hand, and crushed it with her fist.

Despite all Quinn's best efforts, it was looking more and more like the Library needed all the allies it could get.

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TADAAAAA

And now we're back into the nitty gritty!

Much love

KT