LSRO: Chapter 13 - (Patreon)

And now they're in a crunch situation. Always fun, right? But wait, there's more! You get not one but even 2 twists incoming. Don't worry, I won't spoil anything.

Again - super rough chapter, will be updated once I've edited it

Hope you enjoy it!

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Chapter 13

Timing

Quinn gulped and felt panic rising in her gut as she stared at the steadily counting down timer. She pointed at it, knowing for a fact that Lynx could see it too since he was the actually library incarnate. "Why is there a timer that makes no sense whatsoever?" She was very proud at how steady she managed to keep her voice.

Lynx focused on the timer, giving no outward indication of his state of mood and shrugged. "I mean it's pretty self-explanatory to me. You have less than seventy-two hours to retrieve those three items so that the Library can recover strength."

"Why are you emphasizing you as in me?" She asked suspiciously.

"Because I can't very well go with you to do this. I'm only just gaining my equilibrium back and there is far too much for me to do in order to allocate power efficiently and precisely for me to leave the Library right now in its time of need."

Quinn held up a hand to belay any further words from Lynx. "Releasing all of that magic from the worms back into the library's atmosphere significantly replenished some of the very drained reserves. Am I correct?"

"Yes. I really appreciate you doing that..."

She didn't let him get any further. "I'm so glad you're appreciative. How about I take that with me when I'm getting myself mauled by whatever is out there while I try to retrieve your books?" Quinn was doing her best to keep her tone even, but she didn't think she was being successful anymore.

"That was a huge help." Lynx began, but balked slightly when he really examined her face. "I mean you've already done so much?"

It was very obvious by this point that Lynx had no idea how to speak to someone he'd just dropped into the thick of it. His eyes took on a brief distance again before he cleared his throat and spoke again. "I cannot yet leave the confines of the Library. I require certain magical levels to be reached in order to maintain any sort of corporeal form outside of its direct influence. I'm sorry. This is truly nothing I can do anything about."

His tone was soft and somewhat contrite like he actually meant each word he was saying.

Quinn glared at him briefly, resigned to the fact that she'd likely only extended her own life a few days because she was almost completely certain she'd die on this book hunt. But, what was she going to do? Go curl up in a corner and wait to die anyway because the Library would end up shutting down after all? She signed and pushed some stray strands of hair out of her face. "Well, I guess I can try and help, although I'm not promising any measure of success. But I probably wouldn't be alive if you hadn't stepped in with the machete too, so I sort of owe you."

"No problem," he said, "I mean, that was largely preservation for the both of us. As is you venturing out. I should be able to find some things to help you on your journey though."

There was a pause, and it was pretty somber and filled with what-ifs. Only then did Quinn realize quite how close she'd come to just not existing anymore. It was a sobering thought, and it drove a need in her, a need to discover more about the library, to understand what she was going to be doing here and to find more power. Because just knowing how to wield a sword wasn't enough. If she was going to cut it in this strange magical world, she needed more power, and she literally had it all at her fingertips. What could possibly be better than that?

"So, I need to go and retrieve like 18,000 books?" she asked a little incredulously suddenly resigned to the fact. "Starting with these three that seem to be hugely important then?"

"Putting it simply, yes."

She squinted at him. "How about you put it not so simply then? Also, why an arbitrary three days?"

Lynx hesitated for a brief second before obviously deciding against holding anything back for now. "Because the Library currently has the right levels of power to reabsorb and categorize those books. If it falls too low on power, then even if we get those books back, we will have to revitalize the Library more before we can actually use them to their full extent. And that's going to take a lot longer than it would if we can specifically get those three books in time."

"That's all you had to say, you know?" She frowned, glancing around the check in area to see if there was anything she could heft in her left hand to see how the grip was now. Her shoulder was still sore, but her hand felt fine when she made a fist. Then a thought hit her. "Okay so the three books are a start? Are we going to tidy this place then, or maybe you could get started while I go get your books?"

"Of course! This place is a wreck right now. Once we've got the books back we'll be able to reinstate some golems," he paused as he accessed other information. "Then we can take care of the bookworms that didn't get engorged and put them back in working order, and the night owls, and find silverfish, and..."

"Wait," Quinn interrupted him. "Golems?"

"Well we can make Golems to help us with shelving and sorting and cleaning and assisting visitors." He blinked at her, his reptilian eyes somewhat disconcerting as they flickered. "Oh. Golems aren't a thing in your world. Sorry. They are pretty useful here, and we'll be able to get one of the supervisors as well. But..."

"I get it, I get it, we need the books back first." Quinn sighed, and her stomach rumbled again. She groaned, not wanting to bother with the stew yet. Instead, she pushed on. "I don't understand any the other things you said either. Why do we need night owls, and earthworms, and bookworms, and whatever you just said? What does all that have to do with anything?"

"You need those three things in order to create new magical tomes."

"We can create our own magic?"

"Of course! Magic evolves all the time. What did you think happened? That there are just a finite amount of spells and that nobody ever experiments and comes up with new stuff? That's just ludicrous, Quinn." He actually laughed.

"Do you know what, until two days ago, would have been ludicrous, Lynx?" Quinn said, and didn't wait for him to respond, sort of ticked off by his attitude. She gestured all around them. "This. All of this. Magic and everything. This isn't real in my world. So I am sorry if I need things to be spelled out a little bit more clearly for me."

"Ouch. I was being insufferable, wasn't I?" Lynx asked, looking a little uncomfortable with himself.

"Yes, I believe you were being what we would have called a jerk in my world." She crossed her arms and fixed him with a glare, her temper only mildly subdued.

"Sorry, this has been duly noted, and I will do my best to not be an insufferable jerk anymore."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," Quinn said. "Now, okay I guess I have to go get books. But what if someone wants to return the books they borrowed a while ago, or even like if someone wants to borrow a book now? How will people know that the library is here, how will they know it's active again?"

"Well, that's pretty easy. Anybody who wants access to the library can gain access to the library, as long as they're aware of the library. This means that anybody who's aware of magic is going to be aware of the library. And so, any of them can come back or come and borrow books. However, we can also lock the library to entrants at any given time. It's proven quite useful in such cases of plague, or even like this where we didn't know who was friend or foe. We'll have to take care of resealing things in a bit, so we can tidy up and fix everything before actually opening to the public."

"Why did it unlock it now?"

Lynx shrugged. "It needed to scan in order to get approximate locations for all of the tomes and books its missing. Usually it would just tap into and search from the leyline standpoints, but right now they're down to the dregs and magic just hasn't been working properly for the last few hundred years."

"Makes sense," Quinn said, turning to the console and studying it again. "I think finding the books that can return the Library to its former glory is probably the best course of action.

"No choice really. I analyzed the content we have here and nothing powerful was left here. I can't work with it in any way. I have to get these books."

Lynx frowned.

"What's wrong?" Quinn knew something had to be out of the ordinary or he wouldn't be making that expression.

"Just that DeKarlyle's Thesis of Spatial Distortion is going to be difficult to get back. Kajaro can be very... difficult when he wants to be. Pretentious might be a better word. He's determined to crack space and time distortion and he'll stop at nothing to achieve it. While it appears he still hasn't broken through that barrier, I'm unsure he's going to want to give the tome back."

"The other two though? Like I can probably pop in and go hi! I'm the new Librarian. Give me your four hundred and sixty-year-old overdue Library book back and I'll waive the fee if it happens in the next sixty seconds?" She could hope, right?

Lynx actually chuckled. "No, that's probably not the best way to go about it, but they'd likely get a laugh out of it. And if you're going to say that, you do need to have a fine already in mind."

"Shouldn't I charge fines?"

He shook his head. "I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that you need to know what you're going to charge ahead of time. Or at least have a couple of options. Right now it's up to you, but as we power up, the Library connection to you will increase to the extent that it'll give you options in the field. Frankly... sometimes power-hungry people with grey motivations need a harsher punishment for harming a tome than those who are genuine."

"Great." Because that's not cryptic at all, she thought but didn't add. "So we should probably lock the doors from entrants until we have the Library back in some sort of working order, right?"

Lynx surveyed the Library beyond the desk. He cringed slightly and nodded. "Yeah, that's probably the best idea. At least until we get it tidied up a bit."

Quinn looked back at the console with its larger-than-life list still unwavering in its announcement. "So, do I just direct my thoughts to set a lock onto the door? How does that work?"

"Right. So, if you want to interface with the interface..." Lynx laughed at his own joke, then continued, "Anyway, sorry. If you want to interface with the interface, you just need to direct your thoughts directly through the heels of your hands. Eventually, as your power grows and as the library becomes more synchronized with you, as the synchronization becomes complete, you'll just be able to send it a thought regardless of contact."

That sounded much more convenient to Quinn, but she obliged Lynx by waiting for him to finish his train of thought.

"Actually." The manifestation paused. "Let's make sure we retrieve the locations of the books onto a map for you."

He rummaged through several of the drawers, pulling out papers, strange devices that Quinn hoped he wasn't breaking, and a plethora of pens and quills, and feathers, and ink pots... They were definitely going to have to reorganize a lot more than just the books. This place was an administration nightmare.

"Ahah!" He proclaimed pulling out what looked a little bit like an e-reader. It was about four inches by four inches if Quinn had to hazard a guess and fit snugly into Lynx's hand. It's screen lit up like it was backlit and as she looked on, a map began to appear.

"That's strange..." Lynx muttered, a frown appearing on his face along with a raising of his eyebrows. "Very odd."

Quinn didn't think she'd heard him sound surprised before, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know what could surprise a sentient Library manifestation. "What is it?" She asked against her better judgment.

He paused a moment and then looked up, still frowning as he positioned himself in multiple places around the check in area. "Well... it seems that one of the books is approaching us..."

And that's as far as Lynx got, because the doors swung open on creaky hinges before bashing into the walls in a way that made Quinn cringe. She added general maintenance for everything to her list of things they needed to fix. After a second, through the blinding brightness that the doors let in, a solitary figure strode in.

They stood at least seven feet tall and were broad of shoulder, with long hair whipping in the wind, and beautifully sculpted pointy ears.

"It's about goddamn time," they said. "You better not be thinking of charging me overdue fees when I've been trying to summon the library for the last four hundred and fifty years!"

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Imagine trying to return a book for so long and being hella worried about the fine you'll face for not doing so?

Let me know what you think!

Much love

KT

~ ATAN