LSRO: Chapter 124 - Loose Ends (Patreon)

Fiddled with time lines, had a lot of fun. Excited with the direction. Hope you enjoy it.

This isn't a cliffy.

~~

Chapter 124

Loose Ends

Several things bugged Quinn about the Library's current status. Even though she was glad word had spread that the Library was open again for business, she wasn't pleased with the fact that so many of the visitors were just there to sit and enjoy the books. 

This was totally within their rights, but the return of books had slowed significantly. This meant she'd probably have to send people, including herself, out into the universe to retrieve the books people weren't bringing back, or that were having a difficult time making their own way to the Library.

She found herself obsessed with the idea of hundreds of little books on the same planet, all taking part in a trek across a desert to get to a door that would see them reach the Library. Their little covers inching across like they were crawling. 

She needed to get out more.

Quinn stood surveying the Library, her senses reaching out, noticing more and more doors opening. More people now frequented the culinary branch and the dining hall in front of it, which provided wonderful food. People sat in the seating areas all around, many involved in book discussions. It was a wonderful sight to behold. There were hundreds of thousands of books in this part of the Library, and some of these people didn't ever want to borrow one. They enjoyed coming to the Library and soaking up the atmosphere.

Suddenly, Lynx tapped on the desk next to her. She turned toward him and blinked. He stood on her left-hand side, his eyes filled with curiosity.

"What?" Quinn asked. 

"Sorry. You were really deep in thought there. Is everything okay?" he asked.

"I'm just slightly worried about the whole Library thing," she replied.

"How so?"

"Well, didn't we only have like 18,000 books that we had to retrieve in total?" She asked. She knew the Library had so many books she couldn't personally count them without the system. Was there a reason only 18,000 had been missing.

"Yes, for the main branch of the Library anyway." Lynx smiled, obviously trying to make her feel better. 

"But there are heaps more books in the Library. We have hundreds of thousands of books. Is that even enough for a universe?" She asked.

"Ah, yes and no. Remember, we can duplicate books. A lot of the books on the shelves have duplicates. Rudimentary beginner books especially. We have a plethora of them. The thing is, the books we had to retrieve, while beginner, intermediate, and advanced - are all the more complex versions that don't necessarily have another copy of them. We could make another copy if we couldn't retrieve them, but that would cost us energy. Instead of bringing in the ambient energy they have been soaking up for 500 years, which is why we want the books that haven't been returned," Lynx explained.

"Oh, yeah. Now you've completely and utterly spelled it out for me like I was five. Now I understand," Quinn said. She knew he'd given her a similar explanation before, but this held more detail and helped her head.

"I'm sure I'd already explained it to you," Lynx replied.

"You kind of sort of did, but to be fair, I think my brain glossed over it. I've been taking in a lot of information lately." She smiled at him.

"Plus, there's going to be another twenty, thirty thousand books in total from all the other branches that we have to get to get them fully operational. Don't worry, we're not going to run out of work anytime soon," Lynx said, grinning at her.

Quinn sighed. She could already feel the throbbing starting in her temples. "Yeah, I wasn't worried about us running out of work."

"Oh," Lynx said, "well then what was the problem?"

Before Quinn could answer, however, another source of headache approached.

"Are you kidding me?" Malakai said as he strode across the foyer toward the check in desk, oblivious to the patrons gathering to return their books. "She hasn't bothered to reach out to me for a decade. Her son. And she said she doesn't have time right now."

Milaro looked like he probably wished he was anywhere else but talking to Malakai right then. "I know you're disappointed."

"Oh, I'm not disappointed. There is nothing she could do to disappoint me more than she already has," Malakai retorted.

"Malakai, your mother is..."

"Don't deny it. You hate her too." Malakai practically spat the words out, finally resting against the counter inside the check in area. 

"Well, it's no secret that I severely dislike her," Milaro said as he climbed into the check-in desk and nodded at Quinn and Lynx. "But she is your mother. And Miyago was very, very much in love with her. So sometimes I feel myself being more lenient with her than I would be with almost anybody else in the universe..."

"Except for Quinn," Malakai interrupted, crossing his arms and glaring at his grandfather.

"Yes, except for Quinn. But we all know those are extenuating circumstances."

"Want to fill me in?" Quinn asked, hating to be talked about when she was standing right there with them.

"Well," Milaro said, shaking his head as if to clear it.

"My darling mother," Malakai said, "told me that she won't have time for me for a few days. She'll contact us when she's free."

"Oh," Quinn said, "is she royalty? Has lots of, like, business?"

Malakai laughed and Milaro shot him a glare that didn't shut his grandson up even slightly. Then the king sighed and answered. "No, she's a researcher. A chaotic magic affinity researcher. She and her family have contributed a very large portion of the knowledge on the chaos affinity."

"Because the darigháhnish have a chaos immunity or something like that, is that correct?" she said, actually remembering information without accessing it for once.

Malakai grunted, Milaro glared at his grandson again and nodded. "That would be correct. Obviously, it's a lot easier to research something when you're at least partially immune, to a lot of its effects."

"Okay, so she doesn't have time. That's fine. Why are you so upset?" Quinn asked, keeping her tone even. She didn't want to sound too interested in his family drama. He could be fairly volatile about it.

"Because she..."

"Not now, Malakai." Milaro snapped.

"Well, if not now, when?" Malakai snapped right back. "Look, Quinn, my mother decided ten years ago, when my father died, that there were a lot more important things than her son. And she's just staying true to that, even today."

"I'm sorry, Mal," Quinn said, her voice soft, hoping it soothed a little bit. "We'll just go see her next week, okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "I guess we will."

She could tell he wished they didn't have to go and see her at all. 

"It's just not the way I wanted it to go," he said. 

"Hey, it's not the way any of us wanted it to go. But we have other leads and we have a lot of other things to do. How is the locator for the books going?" Quinn turned to the Library manifestation.

Lynx shook his head. "Nope, not ready yet. Probably be another few days before we're ready for it."

"Okay. Jasper is busy with a special harvest for one of the magical plants right now, so I know she can't come. I could just do some training. Because Geneva is... when was it, Lynx?"

"She'll be back at the end of the week and apologizes profusely. But the Esposians that she rescued were in a little bit more dire straits than we anticipated. Those were her words."

Quinn pondered that. "Hmm. Well, I guess that'll be useful for us before we go and talk to the Esposians, right?"

"True..." Malakai actually smiled and then he grinned at Quinn. 

She knew there was nothing good going to come from that grin. "Fine, spill it. What?" She crossed her arms.

"Why don't we go take this opportunity of a couple of days of free time and visit your home, Quinn?" His eyes sparkled.

Quinn could feel the color draining from her face, even if it was only a bit. She'd talked pretty big the day before about going home and letting people know that she was fine, but in all honesty, being missing for a little over two months was not ideal in human society.

When had she started thinking of earth as the home to a human species? That felt... odd. Quinn had to stop herself from going down that rabbit hole.

Still.

They probably missed her. Why hadn't she gone earlier? She hadn't even really thought about it. She'd been so caught up in this adventure where she was an important figure. But he was right. She needed to at least put people at ease if she ever wanted to go back. Sure, she could go whenever, but in order to do so, she needed to not be a missing person.

"Okay," she said. "I guess that's a good idea."

"There is one problem with returning to your homeworld," Lynx spoke up. He hesitated before elaborating. "You won't have direct access to Library and system functions, or at least you won't have much access."

Quinn blinked at him. It made sense. Earth didn't have magic. "So how did you pull me here? Did you pull on my magic?"

"No," Lynx said. "We used the Library's last vestiges of magic to boost the signal to grab you."

"But you didn't pull me through a door."

"Yes, I did. I made a trapdoor appear underneath you and I pulled you through the floor."

"Oh. That's why I fell down." The memory flashing through her mind.

"Yes, that's why you fell down." Lynx conceded. "I seriously thought you'd already figured all this out." He sounded somewhat put out.

Quinn ignored his pout. "So you literally just yanked me through the floor. Wouldn't everybody have seen it?"

"There would have been a momentary sort of earthquake sensation for most people and maybe disorientation." Lynx shrugged. "And because the world doesn't have magic and they wouldn't have believed a trapdoor suddenly opening in the middle of a floor where there had never been a trapdoor before, and a person disappearing into it and not reappearing again."

Quinn blinked. Milano chuckled. "It's a perception thing, Quinn. If people don't believe in magic, they often simply won't see it. Or else they'll perceive it as something else."

"But I believed it when I got here."

Malakai laughed. "That's probably because you literally just got sucked through an emergent trapdoor and into a massive star-like chamber, right?"

Quinn nodded. He made sense. It was very true. The core chamber had seemed supremely magical when she arrived. "So you mean I won't have access to the interface or anything like that?"

"Probably a rudimentary version, considering your actual heritage," Lynx said. "Ooh, I may have to run a couple of analyses on that. I wonder if Siliqua would help me." he started muttering under his breath.

"Hello," Quinn said, clicking her fingers. "Can we focus on me for a second?"

"Quinn," Milaro said, "now the real you comes out. I always knew you were a bit of an attention hog."

She glared at him. 

He laughed. "If looks could kill..."

"Stop it." But she felt better. Her trepidation was mostly gone and she knew she had Milaro to thank for that.

"Okay, so if I don't have access to the Library interface as a general rule, how am I going to come back?" she asked, because that was when the real panic started bubbling. How was she going to get back to the Library if she didn't have power?

"You need to take this," Eric said, hovering over to her and dropping a disc about the size of her palm and about an inch thick into her hand.

"What's this?" She asked, looking slightly up at him. "Magical gate device?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Eric said. "We use them all the time in Halschius. Sometimes the amount of impenetrable rock we have down there just interferes with the signal. It's a chaos thing."

"Oh." Quinn hefted it in her hand. It was pretty heavy.

"Precisely," Eric grinned at her again. "Pity I can't come with. I don't think I can come up with a good disguise."

Lynx was eyeing the disc gleefully. "This is fantastic!"

"Gee thanks." Eric said flatly.

"No, you know what I mean. Now I don't have to try and find one or create one of those. Thanks, Eric," Lynx said. He turned to Quinn with a big smile. "That's a door key. Literally, a Library door key. It's infused with power, sort of like a battery would be in your world, and you'll have to affix it to the door you want to use. It'll expand slightly and you'll need to place your hand on it and it will feed on your energy levels. Which is fine because you have a ridiculous amount of energy and that, plus pulling on the Library's malachite stores, will allow you to come back through to our world."

"Okay, I guess I can go back then. So maybe we should just go and do this," Quinn said, not liking the butterflies that were in her stomach slowly turning into intestine-eating worry. "I'll be ready in an hour."

"I don't think you should take Aradie," Milaro said. Aradie glanced from Quinn's shoulder at him with what could be referred to as a bit of a death glare.

"Yeah, Aradie, I'm sorry. People don't walk around with massive owls on their shoulders where I come from."

There was a shimmer on her shoulder as Aradie became about half her usual size, which was still pretty big to be sitting on her shoulder, but much smaller than usual.

"Seriously, now you let me know you can morph," Quinn asked incredulously.

Aradie shrugged. 

"I still don't think that's gonna work." Quinn said softly. "Will you be okay leaving me?"

"If you're okay leaving me," Aradie said. 

Quinn smiled. "I'll be right back, I promise."

"Well, guys, I have to go and grab some stuff and get ready, and then we'll head out." But she stopped before she left frowning as she looked at Malakai. "Oh, we need to get you jeans and like a t-shirt and some sneakers and some form of... Do you have anything that can run on batteries and adjust his facial features? He's very much an elf. And I don't think there are any comic cons going on in my city right now. So having him pretend to cosplay isn't going to work."

Malakai opened his mouth, but his grandfather beat him to it. Milaro grinned. "I believe I can take care of that for you."

"I'll be right back then," Quinn said. She dashed upstairs, her stomach still roiling. She grabbed her phone that had been sitting on her side table ever since she'd come to the Library. 

In a little mag wallet on the back of it she had key cards, a little bit of cash, and her Drivers License. Things she'd honestly never thought she'd need again. An easy acceptance of her life here in the Library that spoke volumes. She'd need to talk to the core and examine precisely why she'd simply dismissed her homeworld so easily. Now that she thought about it, she'd practically forgotten about her home. That couldn't be normal, could it?

Maybe a side effect of synchronization... or something else.

Still. That could wait. The Library felt like more of a home than anywhere she'd ever known. It was time to go and say goodbye to people and tie up loose ends.

She was nervous to see what her friends had thought. But maybe she was most nervous to find out that they hadn't thought of her at all.

~~

YAY gonna send her home. This should be good bwah hah hah

Much love

KT