LSRO: Chapter 23 - Eye of the Beholder (Patreon)

Hi there everyone!
Yep Chapter 23... am I right?

Guess that didn't go the way he was planning hahaha

Rought draft - you know the drill

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Chapter 23

Eye of the Beholder

"Oh. My. God," she said as the black and green liquid dripped through her hair, down her face, and all over the clothes she was wearing. "I'd better be able to get the bloodstains out of my damn jeans." Although, they had been able to get the bookworm goop out, so this might be possible.

It was a very odd first thought to have, followed by, "What the hell, Malachi? We needed to ask him questions, didn't you hear what he was saying? We should have interrogated him. What did he mean?"

Malachi was propping himself up on his bow, looking extremely pale and lacking what appeared to be a lot of blood. She rushed past the falling snake corpse that was toppling extremely slowly, probably due to the tail and the way it stood, and rushed to Malachi's side.

"Are you okay?" She rushed the words out, looking him over though not knowing what the hell she was doing.

He chuckled faintly. "Are you not mad at me then?"

"No, no, I think I'll forgive you this once. Are you okay? Don't you have any more of those vial things?" Then she paused briefly. "Wait, is he really dead? How did you... isn't he immortal?"

"You're only immortal until someone uses the method needed to kill you to do so. Serpensiril are hard to sneak up on unless they're concentrating. Thank you for distracting him." Malachai inclined his head and Quinn felt her face flush slightly. "And I only had two potions on me."

"Not so immortal now, are you." She muttered glaring at the corpse, angry at herself for using the potion Malachai'd given her. It could have helped him now.

"Quinn. You need to summon a door after we get the book." Malachai's breath was coming in short gasps now.

Ripping his jacket off she wrapped it around his calf, hoping it would help slow the bleeding. She did her best not to get flustered. Dying elf right in front of her, perfect. "Right. And then you need to explain to me why the hell you just killed the only person who's ever mentioned anything about them supposedly not being able to find a librarian or whatever that was."

"Yeah, that was really suspicious, wasn't it?" He breathed the words out.

"And your shooting was really well-timed with not getting the information out of him." she grumbled.

"No, my shot was really well-timed with his vortex being focused on you so that he didn't realize that he was about to get an arrow directly through the eyes. It's the only way to kill that species." Malachai attempted a shrug. "Otherwise they live forever. It was pure luck you'd made him take his hood down, or I couldn't have done it."

"Oh, well, okay, that makes a lot of sense. " Quinn said, and changed the subject. "But that doesn't matter. What about the book? We don't have it. What are we going to do?"

"Settle, settle. You need to go crouch over his corpse, place your hand over his robe, just above his chest, about an inch or two, and say the word 'storage'."

"What?" she said thinking she'd heard it wrong.

"Open your hand, place it palm down. Don't touch his chest, just above it about an inch or two. And say the word 'storage'."

"Fine." She crawled over, held her hand above his chest, trying not to look at the massive arrow that was still stuck through his skull, and said, "Storage."

This time, instead of words scrolling in front of her eyes, a translucent screen popped up instead. It was sort of like an overlay when you were using one of those graphics programs. There were so many squares holding items, items she wasn't even sure she wanted to look at. There were rows and rows of books. Probably not just the book that he'd borrowed from the library. "There are a lot of books in here. A lot of things in here. How is this even possible?"

"It's dimensional storage. It has a lot of capacity depending on the item. I don't have the ability to answer you right now. We need to get the book. Just take his storage container. He's dead, his rights are relinquished."

"How do I take a storage container?" She asked, stuck a little in awe of the concept.

"Just say 'loot storage container'."

"Loot storage container." Suddenly, there was what she could only determine as a pop-up in front of her face that said:

Loot storage container belonging to KaajAriuusucjo

Yes or No

"Yes." The ring around one of Kajaro's fingers slipped off and hovered directly in front of her palm. She turned her hand around and it plopped into it.

"And there you go," Malachi said. "Now you have your very own storage container. Please, before I pass out, get us into the library."

Quinn clutched the ring in her hand and walked over to the rock, holding up her left hand against it. She breathed in and out. The doorway into the path was very wide and only had half a rotting wooden door, but it was all she had to work with. At some stage, perhaps these corridors had boasted beautiful ornate doors, but now they were dilapidated and old, bereft of life, much like the rest of the place.

She glanced quickly toward the lake and realized that the previously frozen octopus was no longer there. She only hoped that with Kajaro's death, the poor creature had been able to escape. Maybe, just maybe, it would be okay now.

Holding her hand against what was left of the door, she spoke. "Library, I need you."

There was a shimmer, and it seemed to be fighting something. She glanced at the time while she waited for it to manifest. "Hey, 24 hours left, not too bad."

They'd wasted a bit more time than she would have liked but ultimately managed to come in under the wire. Suddenly, the door was there. She pushed it open and went back to help Malachi hobble up on one leg. He was pale and sweating, and she could tell that he wasn't doing well. But that was just going to have to do for now.

They hobbled towards the entrance and suddenly Lynx was there, peering out. "This isn't a commonly used entrance. What happened?" He glanced inside, saw the corpse of Kajaro, and looked with panic at Quinn. "Come inside, come inside. Milaro, get over here." There was panic in Lynx's voice, something she didn't think he was capable of, but he definitely wasn't himself right now, or not the controlled self that she had grown used to over the last few days.

They managed to usher Malachai inside before Milaro made it to them. He took one look at his son and grew pale. Dottie trotted out. "Put him on me. It's okay. We can do this." It was odd seeing a bench take more charge than a grown man and a manifestation of a library.

"What did you do?" Lynx said. "You weren't supposed to kill him."

"Well, he was pretty intent on killing us," Quinn snapped. "So we kind of had no choice. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not exactly uninjured either And Malachi is almost dead. So can we just focus on the important stuff? You still have 24 hours before you need the book. Deal with this first."

Quinn stopped and stepped back. "I'm sorry. It's been a really shitty 12 hours."

"I can see that," Lynx said. "I promise. Once we've got the book back, we'll talk. First, we need to get Malachi fixed."

Quinn nodded and made sure to clutch the ring tightly in her hand. She didn't really know how she felt about putting it on, and didn't want to put it in her pocket. She needed to feel it tangibly. Even though it was so tiny, she needed to know that what she took was the right thing.

Lynx looked at her, one hand on the door, hesitant. "Are you sure you have the book?"

Quinn opened her hand to show him the ring. He gasped slightly, which was odd considering he didn't really need air to breathe, but whatever. She needed to get used to his eccentricities.

"Ah, I see. It's in there." He sounded almost reverent like he couldn't wait to get his hands on its contents.

"There are a lot of books in there, and he didn't have it on him otherwise." she shrugged, feeling a little defeated truth be told.

Lynx blinked out of whatever information pit he'd been in and finally gave his full attention. "Let's go help Malachi first."

Being in a different wing of the library was really disconcerting. She hadn't been down this side before, and there were cobwebs on top of books littering the floor. So many cobwebs actually. Running into massive book-eating spiders wasn't on her bucket list. This area was so badly taken care of. Her heart ached at the fact that the library was just pretty much dilapidated at this point.

"It's okay. We will fix it," Lynx said out loud.

"Yeah, I know. I just... it's sad."

"You have no idea," he said.

Finally, they came out into the main hall, except they didn't go the way that Quinn was used to going. Not toward the kitchen, and not toward the stairs, nor the front of it where the check-in desk was. No, this time they moved to the left beyond the kitchen in the back, and when they walked into the room, Quinn couldn't help the gasp that escaped her.

It was the only well-lit area in the entire library. Perhaps Lynx had turned the lights up, but whatever had happened, the room was brightly lit, with pale blue walls, and a very soothing tone to it. There were cots around the room, sort of like a sick bay, and that's when she knew what it was. This was a sick bay, or a nurse's station, or something because Milaro already had his son propped up in one of the beds.

He was working fast, ripping the material of the jacket wrapped around the leg, and then the pants away from his son, and that's when she saw it. The massive gash from midway down his thigh to just below his knee. No wonder he was bleeding so much. How had he held out?

"What can I do?" she asked softly.

Milaro glanced at her. "Can you just talk to him?"

"Sure," she said, moving over. "Hey, Malachi, no dying."

"I don't think that's what my dad meant." He deadpanned her.

"Well, I'm telling you not to die, because you just went through that hell with me, and we need to have this bond because I need some sort of friendship that isn't a hologram." She focused on his face, hoping for color to enter his features again.

Malachi actually smiled. "Okay, deal. I don't think I'm gonna die. I'm just very tired."

"Stay awake, son," Melaro said to his grandson. He was more serious than usual, and very focused. A strange green-blue glow emanated out of his hands as he ran them over his grandson's leg. Malachi grimaced.

"Oh, that does not feel good." he bit out the words through clenched teeth.

"Of course, it doesn't feel good. I'm knitting your tendons and muscles back together." Milaro's words held no warmth, just clinical common sense.

Malachai however, had no problem putting zest in his words. "You could have given me a painkiller, a sedative, anything."

Not really sure what possessed her to, Quinn leaned over and pinched his arm.

"Ow," Malachi said, looking up at her in shock.

"There, see? Now you're not even thinking about your leg."

He looked at her for a moment and blinked, and then he started laughing.

"Ah, good, you're laughing." She turned to Melaro. "Does that mean he's gonna be okay?"

"He'll be fine."

"So your magic is healing magic?" She asked.

"Some of it, yes." Then he continued. "My grandson just needs to sleep for a day or two now."

"Really?"

"Well, maybe not that long, but yeah, he needs to recuperate his strength naturally. This is no longer a battle, so just go with Lynx and get done what needs to be done, so that we didn't just drain like ten hours of the library's power for nothing." Milaro flashed her an understanding smile.

"Oh," she looked at her counter, and it was, in fact, down to 12 hours. She felt beads of sweat start to form on her forehead, behind the nape of her neck. What if the book wasn't in the storage ring? She gulped and hurried out of the room to find Lynx waiting there for her.

"Are you ready, then?" the Library manifestation said.

"About as ready as I'm gonna be, aren't I?" Quinn couldn't help the nerves nipping at the back of her mind.

After several moments of silence where Lynx seemed disconnected again, he turned to her. "Okay, give me the ring."

And she did. She handed it over, and it opened up in front of both of them. All of those little cubbyholes were visible to both of them.

"This is insane. You need to explain this to me as soon as you have time." Quinn really wanted to understand how this dimensional storage worked.

"I know." he said while scanning the contents, "Okay now, reach in and take the book."

"Which one is it?" She asked, peering at the six odd rows of books.

"Third from the left, four rows down."

She reached forward, and the book actually materialized in her hand. But it wasn't until it was fully out of the dimensional space that she could feel the mass of weight to it.

"Whoa," Quinn said, having to use two hands to hold it before it smashed down on the counter. She placed it there with some considerable impact and dust clouds.

"Check it in," he said.

She looked at it. It was very nondescript. A plain black leather cover with "DeKarlyle's Thesis of Spatial Distortion" written in plain silver script over the front of it. That was it. It was, however, about four inches thick.

"Okay," she said, "here goes."

Right hand on the tome, left hand on the console. She accessed the system before her and willed the book back into the library system.

Return De Karlyle's Thesis of Spatial Distortion to the Collection:

Yes. No. Extend Borrow.

She activated Yes with her mind.

The console beeped softly and low for about five seconds. Lights flickered all around her. Suddenly, lines of script began to appear before her eyes. This time, however, it was more akin to the screen she'd brought up when she needed to access her abilities. They spread before her eyes as if she truly had a heads-up display in front of her.

All this strange code, in pictures, words, runes, and a myriad of languages, some of which she couldn't even identify, scrolled before her.

Library system reboot Finalized

Library system reset Initiating

In. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

A loud click resounded through her ears and the entire building, then everything went dark.

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I love doing stuff like this

So much fun!

Much love

KT

I have been having such a blast with this portion hahaha!