LSRO: Chapter 142 - Vulnerable (Patreon)

So... Here we go with one more backstory/infodump. I'm unsure how else to add all this information in. I could pepper it through, but I feel it's necessary to know this at this particular stage in the story.

Hope it's enjoyable.

Not a cliffy

~~

Chapter 142

Vulnerable

Quinn wanted to grab that train of thought and run with it as far as they could. Except, if she did that, she was going to have none of the answers she'd come down here for in the first place, or only half of them. This was too important to push to the side.

It couldn't wait.

"Okay, so I'm going to put a pin in this brother thing that could be our arch-nemesis, because we have other stuff to address," she said.

The Library chuckled. The sound resonated through the space and made the lights above them shimmer ever so slightly. "You make a good point, Quinn, plus I think we should have more than just us present for that."

"So quick segue," Quinn said, "are you able to appear to me like this now because of the excess power that the Library has?"

"In a manner of speaking," the Library said, "I could always have generated this shadow, but yes, when we were in emergency and critical mode, this would have drained too many resources that I needed to allocate into other areas. As we are right now approaching complete and utter stability in power, this is negligible power usage and I have some vanity."

"Couldn't you appear as a dragon instead of a person?"

"No," the Library said, smugly, "I don't want to. I quite like being enigmatic. Don't go around spreading rumors, okay?"

"Well, it's not a rumor if it's true," Quinn said. She could almost feel the glare from the Library this time. "Fine, I won't say anything."

"You said you had other questions? Do they have to do with your family?"

Quinn shook her head. "No, they have to do with everything." 

Aradie, very unhelpfully, accessed brief images of the accident Quinn had been in as a child, followed by the magic as it suffused her body when Kajaro chose to try and attack her. Quinn waved the images away. "There's no need to shove them in my face. I remember them very well now." Aradie cooed slightly apologetically and Quinn sighed.

"As my owl has decided to show us exactly, I want to understand what I am and how the hell I survived that accident?" For several seconds, the Library was silent, but Quinn knew it wasn't avoidance. It was simply trying to organize the copious amounts of thoughts that the Library had in its mind.

"You were based, in theory, because I didn't put it into practice personally, on using part of my initial unmodified-by-anything genetics. We all, before the establishment of the Library, gave samples to be stored, just in case, in the event of a disaster, a fatal injury or something, that we could perhaps regenerate aspects of ourselves if necessary. 

“There were a lot of reasons to do this, and they were all very good. So in theorizing, the idea was that because it's my genetics, whatever we created, whoever we created from it, would also become completely aligned with all affinities, no matter what they were. And thus, we would negate the need to search specifically for the Librarian affinities, due to, well, basically overriding that need by giving you all of them.” The Library paused for a moment, as if it knew Quinn needed time to digest everything before she could take in more.

“However, since you weren't actually born into dragon form, we needed to temper that with some mental strengthening, some chaotic manipulation abilities that come with being the cosmicisodracus species, and also an ability to, well, manipulate books, understand books, really get what the magic of the tomes is all about. And that was the theory behind creating a Librarian, because we were at our last wits. We didn't have any other options right then. And that was before the shutdown."

That was a lot. Quinn took all of that in for several seconds before speaking. "Okay, so I'm not actually related to Milaro, correct?"

"Well, that's correct. You received what I would call a distillation of the essence of the familial bloodlines abilities from a few species. Not actually their genetics, but the abilities were refined for you, so that we could highlight the specific areas that needed strengthening given that we knew you'd be in danger since all Librarian signatures had been wiped out, if we were to succeed in creating you."

"Okay, so I have the Seveshall Mind Magic line." Quinn ran through the information she'd heard again.

"That was for extra mind protection to give you greater ability to reinforce your own mind, so that nobody could influence you or target you. Did you already suspect that Korradine had been compromised?" Quinn asked.

The Library shrugged its shoulders. "I'm not entirely sure. I think maybe on some level we all did. But it was also a matter of simply wanting to find a way to mitigate any possible circumstance changes."

"Okay, I've got that. Who else?"

"Well, you also had the Species Affinity for Chaotic Magic, which is ever so slightly different from the Dragon's innate ability. We took that, I believe, and distilled it down from the darigháhnish, so that you would have an even higher ability to manipulate chaotic energies, maybe feel chaotic energies. and be protected from them. That could even be why you've been having sort of like a radar reaction when you come in the vicinity of those specific tomes that belong in the Restricted Vault."

"Okay," Quinn said, digesting that, trying her best not to get overwhelmed. Frankly, she was probably a little bit more excited than overwhelmed. Figuring out who and what she was meant that she could figure out what she could do and how far she could push that. Just how strong could she get? "And I'm guessing, lastly, if you gave me a Magical Essence ability for the books, did you really distill Salosier Affinities?"

"Well, not necessarily affinities. You see, people like Narilin, they have this innate ability to manipulate the magic word to... Well, basically, you want a scribe who's a Salosier. We got super lucky that she applied when she did. And so, that probably feeds into your ability from the darigháhnish as well, allowing you to hone in on the books that we've lost, that we didn't even know we'd lost. Does that answer your questions?" the Library asked.

"Well, sort of. It answers my questions, to a certain extent." Quinn mulled everything over. She could understand what they were aiming for and why. That was logical. Still magic made so much possible. Even if she was magical, she'd been raised in a world without it. Sometimes it was still difficult to grasp the concept properly. "These are all just a part of me, and they've been coming out in different ways so far."

"Well, of course, I can't tell you how it's going to work. You're the only one of you." The Library said softly, "but you are also sort of a part of me." 

"But I'm not fully a dragon like you."

"Well, no, because you were created in a different way, but you still have all of the pertinent genetics involved."

"Oh," Quinn thought that over and finally asked, "How did I survive that wreck? I mean, I know from the memories that something kicked in and saved me, but it doesn't really make sense to me. I just know that I should probably have died and instead managed to protect myself somehow when my family didn't survive." It was harder to ask than Quinn realized. She hadn't initially thought about how voicing that question would make her feel. Her stomach tied itself in knots.

"It's pretty simple," the Library said. "You are a dragon. Essentially, at your core. That's what your entire physiology is based on. You've just lived in this form your entire life. There's so much you're going to have to learn if you want to understand how to shift shapes. I think maybe after the next synchronization... Your body needs to learn to process more power. Some of it may happen instinctually, especially if you're in mortal danger."

"So that means when I was fighting Kajaro, I wasn't actually in danger of dying?" Quinn asked.

"Probably not. If it didn't kick in, then you probably would have been fine. You'd already increased your energy levels after all. But then you would have also given away to him what you are, and that wouldn't have been a good thing. So, in a way, I'm extremely happy that you weren't in mortal danger."

Quinn nodded, taking all of that in. "So, basically, when we were hit and I was a hundred percent certain to die, did it pull on my innate magic? Do you remember when you first got here and you were looking at your energy levels? And I do believe Lynx made a comment that he hadn't expected you to have magical energy levels that high?"

"Yeah. If you haven't used magic before, you should have had maybe a hundred and that's pushing it, if you were lucky. I think you had double that, at least. So, you did have a basis larger than expected and you already had mana. And so, basically, it triggered and it drained every single drop of magic it could from you to fuel that barrier, and thus protect you from imminent death. Because dragons, well, I mean, we probably could die, but you've got to get through a lot of magical protection to kill us. Makes us mostly invulnerable. Do we have weaknesses?"

The Library shook its head from side to side, very slowly, like it was thinking. "We probably do. I'd say we definitely do by now. Everybody's always trying to find ways to kill things that are unkillable, because then you understand why it's not unkillable in the first place. However, I am, myself, even with my wealth of knowledge, not aware of what can kill us fully."

"Did they come close to it with what they did to the Library?" Quinn asked, and then the questions came even faster. "And you? Are you that intrinsically bound to it? That destroying the Librarian connection and any ability to filter out the chaotic element of the magic? Would that kill you?"

There was another pause before the Library responded. "Well, what would have killed me is if all the filters stopped and the backlash of chaotic energy within the mana pools was magnified by the amount of mana that we have down there. I don't even think I would have survived that sort of eruption. I also don't think that the sample of my genetics would have been enough to save me. So if it's a big enough explosion, I guess that'll kill us."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "And why did you all make it so that a Librarian had to be linked to you?"

"Ah, that should be a conversation for another day, Quinn."

"Yes, but I'm here now and therefore it should be a conversation for now."

Aradie hooted. It sounded more like a laugh. She obviously agreed with Quinn.

A soft sigh escaped the Library before it responded. "The Librarian was introduced so that the Library, myself, didn't just act on my own whims in order to make any specific or integral or long-reaching or major changes of any type. I have to work in concert with the Librarian. We must synchronize. We must be on the same page and we can veto each other. That's important. Important that I don't suddenly go senile and start trying to amalgamate everybody into books. Or that you don't go power crazy and start trying to burn all the books so nobody else gets the information."

"How long on average were other people Librarians?"

"Oh," the Library responded, "a few thousand years, someone ten thousand or so."

"So was Korradine a Librarian much longer than most?"

"Well, yes, she loved... Oh, yeah, she was a Librarian a lot longer than most people ever made it," the Library said, a sadness underlying the tone. "That's... I mean, I knew that, but I didn't really connect the dots properly."

"Sometimes," Quinn said, "it's all about perspective. Right now, I feel like my perspective on our dear Korradine is perhaps a little less biased than yours and Lynx's and everybody else's."

The Library chuckled. "You know, I think it's good that you're here, Quinn."

"Well, that's great because I seem to be stuck here."

"Well then, is that it, Quinn?"

"Yes, I think so." She paused. "For now."

"So I'm going to summarize for you," the Library said.

"Oh, gee, regale me with your summary."

"No need to be so sarcastic. You are technically a newly improved version of me. You have all of the affinities and you have complete and utter access throughout the Library to everything, no matter what. You are codified in a way that my own signature recognizes yours on a personal level. So there are things that you can access that nobody else has been able to access. Maybe even some things I might have forgotten about."

Quinn caught her breath, trying to tamp down on the wave of excitement that tried to engulf her. "And where would I find these things?"

"I thought you'd never ask. I think it's time that you went and visited the vaults."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "I've been to the restricted vaults."

"No, I mean the vaults. These are the histories of everything, of everyone, and of everywhere."

"Every when, too?" Quinn asked.

"In a sense," the Library said, "but nothing about the future, sadly."

Quinn felt a lump form in her throat. "Can I bring Lynx with me?"

"Of course you can take Lynx with you. I don't think he's feeding information to anywhere. He's just lacking many of his memories, as am I. Perhaps there's a way you can help piece them together by accessing the vaults."

"Is there a reason you haven't let anybody else consult them?"

"Yes." The Library answered vaguely.

"Well, what is it?"

"If I let people access the vault, Quinn, then I let people access an integral part of myself, and I can't afford that. You, however, are literally a part of me, and so I feel that's something I can entrust you with." There was an air of vulnerability around the Library for a moment.

"I get it." Quinn nodded. None of them needed anyone else to know how to make the Library feel vulnerable.

~~

TADAAAA

Poor little Library

I love it.

Much love

KT