LSRO: Chapter 20 - He's not a God (Patreon)

Soooo sometimes Lynx acts first and doesn't think. Given he's a giant knowledge database, you'd think he'd at least technically know how to behave around people, right?

Wrong lol

Rough Draft incoming. I hope you enjoy! Definitely got some system edits incoming in this one. It's amazing what just doesn't dictate well.

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Chapter 20

He's not a God

"No pressure or anything," Quinn muttered under her breath as the portal Lynx shoved them through closed behind them.

"A bit passive-aggressive, aren't we?" said Malachi, although he sounded about as irritated as Quinn felt.

"It would be nice if, for once, he would give us the information in advance," said Quinn, feeling oddly disgruntled. She felt she had a right to be considering she'd been pulled here against her will anyway. It felt like she was giving as much as she could in an amicable sort of way. It would be nice to be treated the same.

"He's got a lot on his mind..." Malachi began.

But Quinn wasn't about to let him finish. "Isn't he like omnipotent or something?" she snapped.

"He's not a god, he's a library."

"Same thing, he has like all this knowledge from everywhere, doesn't he?" In her mind, it was pretty much the same thing.

"Exactly, he doesn't have all the knowledge from everywhere because it's always evolving. And people took the books out and never returned them. And the bookworms ate some. Right now he's trying to consolidate his power base again." Malachi attempted to explain it to her, but even he had a frown on his face as he spoke.

"Good point. The bookworms ate some. So the knowledge he had escaped then?" She crossed her arms and stared at him.

He ran a hand through his hair, obviously slightly flustered. "With low power, he doesn't have access to his full system. I think..." He shifted his weight, like he was trying to figure out another way to explain Lynx's behavior.

"Malachi," Quinn said, looking around him and stepping forward very carefully to reach out a hand, "don't step back."

"Why? What?"

She grabbed his arm and tugged him forward. He turned to look and saw that there was a gaping hole in the floor directly behind where his heels had been. He blanched a little bit, fading to a more pale blue.

"He pushed us out of a well." He was blinking rapidly at the hole.

She shrugged, "Well, can you see any trees like not in the extreme distance? Or areas to put a trapdoor? It's so rocky here, it's like there's nothing. I almost expect tumbleweeds to blow past and somebody to call me 'little lady' and step out with a gun and cowboy boots."

Malachi blinked at her, not understanding the reference in the slightest. Quinn sighed, her comedic talents gone to waste.

"This just seems like a bit of a desolate wasteland," she explained.

"Well, from what I know of Kajaro, that's not surprising." Malachi took a very deliberate step farther away from the well.

Quinn's curiosity got the better of her. "He's immortal, does that mean there's like a vampire or something?"

Malachi shrugged, "I have no idea of two things, what you mean by vampire because that's a mythological creature? And secondly, I don't have the map. You have to pull it out and so we can find where the book is."

"Oh right," she fumbled, tugging it out of her pant pocket and turning it in her hand. "Okay, let's figure out where we are and take a moment to marvel at the fact that you're an elf calling a vampire a mythological creature."

Malachi scowled. "Hey. I'm standing right here."

"I'm very aware."

"How much time do we have left?" Malachi asked suddenly changing the subject as she was still trying to figure out the map.

"39 hours and change," she said, trying to keep the worry from her voice. "It's okay, we've got this, we can do this, of course we can, we wouldn't be here if we couldn't." She tried to sound reassuring, more for herself than for her adventure partner, but she didn't think she was very convincing.

"Okay," she turned around, frowned, and pointed in the northwest direction. "I think we have to go over there."

Malachi leaned over her shoulder and looked. "I would agree with you."

"Oh great, I'm so glad that you agree with me."

"That was unnecessary," Malachi muttered.

Quinn took a deep breath. She really felt on edge. "I know, I'm tired."

"Well, you had like six hours of sleep."

"You think six hours sleep is a lot of sleep?"

"Well, it's more than a lot of people get." Malachi was actually pouting.

She didn't dignify that with an answer and they headed off in a northwesterly direction, hoping to find an immortal being who might or might not be a vampire. Things just kept getting better.

The more they walked, the uneasier Quinn felt. There was something off about this. As far as the eye could see, there was just plain, black rock stretching as far as the eye could see, with some moss scattered through the cracks. They came across the occasional well and after almost two hours of walking, they'd found nothing. There was no real change in landscape, just perhaps a very slight rise and fall of the rocks. Some trees stuck out here and there from them, but nothing like what she'd been expecting. It almost felt like they were walking in a time loop.

She stopped and turned to her right. There seemed to be a darker spot of rock just over a very slight slope. She took several steps and fell. In the second it took for her to reach the ground she realized that this world had to have subterranean levels. The landing jarred her knee and made her wince with pain. Great, now that on top of her ankle.

Why on however many worlds they were had Lynx failed to mention such pertinent information? Was the Library sick or something?

Malachi peered over the edge of the hole. "Oh good, you're not dead. That would have put a bit of a dampener on this."

"Gee, thanks." She stood up wincing as her knees ached a little and dusted herself off. Sure enough, there was a path leading down from the hole that she'd fallen through. It was spacious around her too and a strange luminescent gree moss clung to the walls of the cave.

"Huh," she said, "get down here."

"Fine." The next second Malachi was standing next to her.

"Oh," he said, "it appears to be subterranean then?"

"You think?" She snapped, immediately regretted snapping, took a deep breath, held up a hand, and said, "I'm sorry, I'm very tired and a little grumpy that Lynx didn't think to mention this to us."

"Well, he did mention the world name. He probably assumed that we know."

"Why would he make that assumption? I'm not even from this, whatever universe, galaxy, solar system thing is."

Malachi chuckled. "Yes, but you're a librarian and thus he's already forgotten that he still has to teach you so much. Especially since, as I understand it, you didn't receive the information packet."

"No, I hit my head when I was being transferred and something got scrambled. It was probably my brain. Who knows, maybe I actually fell down a rabbit hole and have been chasing a rabbit with a bloody pocket watch this whole time." She really couldn't seem to let go of the grumpy.

Malachi raised an eyebrow. "I'm guessing that's a reference I don't understand."

"Yes, everything I say is a reference you don't understand."

Malachi put his hands up. "Whoa, whoa, that's not my fault."

"No," she looked at him and felt somewhat contrite, "I suppose it's not. Anyway, the path in front of us leads mostly Northwest. I'd say we should follow it."

They followed the path for maybe 10 minutes and Quinn was trying very hard not to focus on the timer in the bottom right corner of her vision. They had plenty of time, plenty of time. 35 hours and counting down. Nothing to panic about.

"Okay, this is okay. It's not a narrow tunnel, at least," she said, mumbling under her breath to stay calm.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why? Are you afraid of tight and small spaces?"

"Isn't everyone?" she said. But luckily, a little ways up ahead, it opened out into a massive cavern. They'd been steadily going slightly downhill while they'd been walking. And this thing had to have 20-foot ceilings. There were stalagmites and stalactites and about six other wide tunnels leading off it headed in various directions.

"I guess we should pick the right path then," Quinn said, angling herself around to find which tunnel was closest to the direction she needed. There, quite literally pointing exactly toward where the book was supposed to be was a tunnel.

Malachi glanced at the map and up at the perfectly placed tunnel entrance. "I guess we're going down this one then."

She looked around and was surprised that they hadn't encountered any people, any creatures, or anything living at all. Just a lot of sand and a lot of glowing moss and a hell of a lot of tunnels.

"Yeah," she said, "this seems suspiciously easy."

"Ugh," Malachi said, "I wish you hadn't said that."

Quinn cringed, belatedly realizing exactly what he meant. "Well, let's just keep going where we need to go." And so, they followed the tunnel. She could tell that this one also angled ever so slightly downwards.

As they walked, there was no sound but their own footsteps and the sound of sand as it fell away from their boots with each step. Everything around them was so silent, like there was something waiting, as if something had scared away the type of creature that might actually live down here. Then again, maybe the entire planet was devoid of habitation and Lynx had completely steered them wrong because the guidance system in the library was currently crap.

It could be any of it, really.

"Did you hear that?" Malachi asked.

"No," she said, not wanting to admit that her thoughts had probably been far too loud for anything else to get past them.

"There, do you hear that?" This time, however, she did. It was almost like a dripping. Perhaps there's an underground cavern stream. That would make sense since there was no water up on the surface but moss did appear to grow almost everywhere and didn't it require moisture?

Malachi looked around and up. "Maybe that's why Lynx said that there wasn't much air. I mean, he did prepare us somewhat."

"Yeah, he did. It definitely feels like the air is heavier here." She looked around, not seeing any other paths veering off from the one they were on, and shrugged. "Well, it looks like we just need to keep going." The path, luckily, didn't get any narrower. It simply continued on. But it did begin to get steeper and it became very obvious that their path was heading much farther down into the ground.

"Are we still on track?" Malachi asked.

"Yeah, we are," she said, looking at the map, following the dot right where the book was located. She didn't like that they were definitely on the right track, but couldn't deny that they were. As she looked around, the moss glowed even brighter. So much that she could see condensation on the walls.

"I'm not sure I like how wet this is getting," Malachi said.

"Can't swim?" Quinn asked, trying to lighten the mood somewhat.

"Oh no, I'm perfectly good at swimming. It's not wanting to swim in unknown waters that gets to me."

Quinn shuddered. Yep, that was a thing of nightmares.

As they continued to move forward, the sand became damp. Which was better for grip, considering she'd already eeked that ankle the last time she came to visit a different world. Speaking of which, that ankle didn't hurt anymore. Not even as much as the knees she'd tweaked falling down here. There were apparently restorative properties in the library which bode well for future adventures if she ever made it out of the weirdly subterranean underground area that Lynx had sent her to without warning.

"Well," she said, "it's a good thing I can swim. Thanks for asking, Lynx."

Malachi chuckled. "It's not like Lynx really knew. Not on a personal level anyway. I mean, obviously, it isn't just underground water."

"Well, maybe Kajaro is a fish," Quinn said.

"I highly doubt that. I don't know of any immortal fish. Do you know everything?"

"On every world? In every dimension?" Quinn asked.

Malachi blushed. "No. No, I do not."

"Exactly. He could be an immortal fish vampire." There was a chuckle that echoed throughout the path as they rounded a piece of wall that opened them into a large cavern.

There, right in front of them, spanning acres and acres, was a massive underground lake.

The bright side was that they could see three tunnels in the distance on the other side of it. And there was a raft-like boat anchored over with them, pulled up high onto the sandy path. Quinn gulped. Boating had never been her thing. Even Malachi looked pretty green around the gills. Although maybe that was just the strange moss fluorescent lighting down here.

There was a chuckle that echoed throughout the cavern again. And that's when she spotted him, standing at the entrance to the middle tunnel, all the way across the lake. He had to be tall, and he definitely wasn't a fish. But that's about all she could make out, even squinting.

Kajaro laughed again, and it was really getting old. But then he spoke. The sound carried all the way across the lake, booming and echoing off the stony ceiling. "I am here, and I am definitely not a fish. Should you be able to reach me, I will consider granting your wish."

"What's the catch?" Quinn raised her voice, knowing that there was going to be a catch. Also, she was oddly put out by the fact that he rhymed his statement.

"You have to make it from your side of the lake to mine. And let's just say, my friends in the lake here like visitors about as much as I do." As if to answer his words, or perhaps even punctuate them, there was a bubbling from the depths of the lake that shook the entire cavern itself.

Quinn was quite certain making it to the other side had just got a whole lot more difficult than sailing a dingy raft.

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Hope you all enjoy the Kajaro encounter!

Thank you for reading

Much love

KT