LSRO: Chapter 37 - Sleep to Dream (Patreon)

Okay so... this is a surprise chapter upload.

Tues-Fri... suuuure, but I really wanted to share this chapter with you. So... here is one a bit ahead of time. Don't worry I'm still posting Tue-Fri.

This is my favorite chapter to date. I had an absolute blast writing this one and it helps me solidify certain aspects of the story.

I really hope you enjoy it too.

~~

Chapter 37

Sleep to Dream

Quinn blinked her eyes open, but it was still pitch black around her. She pushed herself up and looked around for Aradie, but the bird was nowhere to be seen. In fact, this didn't even feel like her own room. Not that she'd been in it enough to really have it feel like her own room, but the principle was still there.

She listened and heard a dripping in the distance as if drops of water were coming out of a tap and into an already partially full sink.

Very slow, very deliberate.

Concentrating so hard on that noise, the slither she heard felt like somebody was banging on a bass drum. It was that loud. She gasped slightly and jumped a little in her bed. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, feeling a sudden chill cross over her flesh, giving rise to goosebumps.

She forced herself to take a deep breath and calm herself down. She looked around, logically, the darkness suddenly becoming accustomed for her, and she could make out vague shapes. The bed she was in was not the bed she fell asleep in. It was nondescript, plain and dark. The blankets felt oddly similar, and yet there was something about it that felt decidedly off.

There was no smell permeating the entire space. It smelled like nothing at all.

Quinn looked up and realized that instead of the large door that led to her chambers atop the library, there was a massive arch in front of her, and the darkness from beyond it encroached into her space. She glared at it for a moment before pulling the blankets even tighter and listening for the sounds of the dripping and the slithering, like a snake careening across the floor.

And then she heard a voice that she had never thought to hear again, not since two days ago, not since they killed Kajaro and took the book back from him to refuel the library. There was a sibilant hiss, the echo on the S's that made her unequivocally understand who it was.

The timbre and tone exactly the same as it had been when he spoke to her, full of venom, full of hatred, and a strange sense of being better than everybody else around him.

"You don't know what you've done." The words echoed through the completely black space, all the way to her ears. There was no Aradie to go and attack him, so obviously this wasn't real.

Right? Wasn’t that telling?

"Everything is real. You have yet to comprehend that," the voice said, echoing inside her head this time, and not just the space around her.

She'd been through so much in the last week, had to accept a lot of stuff that she never would have accepted before, because she was thrust into it. This was no different. She just needed to calm down and think.

"You took what was mine." began the Kajaro voice again.

"The book didn't belong to you," she spoke very clearly, confident in her conviction. "The book is a part of the library, it's a part of its integral systems, you know that, and I know that." She marveled at how confident she managed to sound in what apparently was her subconsciousness.

In a dream that didn’t feel like a dream.

The snake-man chuckled, the serpent's surreal flares around his head bled bright for just a moment, and then it was gone again, sinking her in inky darkness, leaving only the shape directly in front of her eyes as she blinked.

Quinn heard more slithering approaching the first, more than just one serpensiril. It wasn't just Kajaro, this was some bloody vivid dream,or projection, or whatever this was.

"This isn't a dream," another sibilant whisper hit her ears, one that she'd never heard before, one that was not Kajaro. "This, this is a vision, a warning, perhaps one we should have sent sooner. The library cannot exist anymore, and we will find ways to make sure that occurs."

Laughter mixed with hissing played along Quinn’s spine like a piece of barbed wire.

"You want to plunge the world into chaotic magic, all of the worlds, you want to destroy people with magic that will burn them from the inside out," Quinn said, her statement flat, and her dislike for whatever this was growing by the second.

"Magic is meant to be wild," another of the voices said, this one higher pitched, with venom tinting every single syllable. "Magic is meant to be wild and those that cannot harness it deserve to be swallowed up by it, deserve to fuel the chaos further. The library stands in magic's way, everything that cannot handle it should be consumed, devoured, destroyed."

Karajo’s next whisper punctuated the former. “Only those powerful enough should wield magic, the rest are merely fodder to increase the chaos.”

The hairs on Quinn's arms stood on end as each word absorbed into her skin. Still, there was no scent, no smell and she knew, without a doubt, that Kajaro had had one when she previously encountered him.

This had to all be in her head. Perhaps a remnant from when his magic made contact with her. Had he somehow left a piece of consciousness behind? That sounded like something out of a fantasy book, which was precisely where she found herself. So, surely, surely that was possible.

"Everything is possible with magic," Kajaro's voice leaked in through her ears. "Everything is possible, but only if you're willing to sacrifice everything to achieve it."

"And by 'sacrifice everything,’ I take it you mean to say you will sacrifice everybody else and not make any sacrifices yourself?"

Kajaro laughed at her comment, and it was a cruel sound. It bit down her spine, making her shudder all over. He practically spat out the next words. "You think I haven't sacrificed? What do you call what you did to me in that cave?"

"Just desserts," Quinn said, suddenly confident at a level she didn't think she should be able to reach, but found herself there regardless. This was maybe not a dream, but it wasn't real because there was no scent. Scent permeated everything, and that meant that whatever this was should be able to keep her safe.

"You can't touch me here, can you? Not in the library and not in whatever this thing that you've conjured is." The blankets still felt real. Grounding.

There was a harrowing, bitter laugh that echoed around the chamber, multiple from Kajaro and whomever else had somehow infiltrated this mind space of hers. She couldn't help thinking that maybe this was a portion of the library or perhaps there was a booby trap built into the book they took from his corpse.

Nothing made complete sense, but there were so many different theories she could come up with. In magical worlds, wasn't anything possible?

Hand wavy stuff and all…

"You'd like to think we can't touch you and I might not be able to," Kajaro said, his voice that sibilant, slimy sound. "But there are others who work with me. Not only of my species but of others too. You'd be surprised if you knew just how many people want chaos to reign."

And with that, a thunderous crash echoed throughout her head and she sat bolt upright in her bed, for real.

It took her several seconds to realize that the sound was actually a very loud and panicked hooting coming from Aradie, who still clung to the top of the bed, her claws shredding the ancient wood.

Finally, words and images projected to her through her connection to the bird reached her mind, of freeing her, of getting her out of that dark area, squawking and warning of the  danger and that she needed to come back.

Quinn reached up and scritched the bird behind its head. "Thanks, girl," she said out loud.

Safe now, promised safe, were the images and words that echoed through her mind. And suddenly, Lynx was in the room too, a panicked expression on his face.

"What happened?" He said. "There were so many fluctuations just now. I couldn't reach you. None of the notifications went through. And why do you have a night owl on your bed stand?"

Lynx was actually flickering in and out. It meant his concentration was spread thin as far as Quinn had been able to gather so far.

"It was nothing. It was just a dream remnant or something.” Now that she was legitimately back in her room, the previous interaction seemed distant and smokey.

“Who of? Who contacted you? How did they contact you?" Lynx was still grasping at straws and it seemed desperately trying to sort through images and files and words, whatever he could.

Quinn could tell that now. When had she gotten that portion of the connection to integrate into her mind? Maybe she really had needed the sleep on all different levels.

She glanced at Aradie, who gave a tiny hoot, looking very pointedly at her. As if telling her to go ahead and inform Lynx of what went down.

"It was Kajaro," Quinn said, hesitant to say so because hadn't they killed him? Wasn't he dead? How the hell had he infiltrated her dreams? "I could have just been having a really overactive imagination, you know, because the encounter with him was pretty bloody traumatic. And I haven't really slept since then. It's been playing on my mind a lot."

But Lynx walked up to her and looked her dead in the eyes, leaning over. If it had been anybody else, that might have been intimidating or scary even. But Lynx was full of concern, a concern that radiated out toward her.

"Kajaro? Was it just him?" he asked, his voice gentle while his eyes flickered in their multitasking.

"No, there were others there. The serpensirils?"

"Yes, Serpensirils. How many others were with him?" Lynx asked, and there was an air of desperation in his voice.

"I think, two or maybe even three others. I think there were three different voices, other than his.” While Lynx’s tone was off putting with all its worry, Quinn wanted to recall as much as she could while it was still vivid.

"Did you see them?"

"No," Quinn said. "I only heard them, all of them, since I couldn't see them. And I couldn't smell them. He had a very distinct smell. I would have thought that if he was really there, I would have smelled him. Or even remembered the smell, but that didn't come to me."

She pushed on, figuring she should tell him about what they had to say. “They really don’t like the Library. They said that chaos should reign and that the weak should perish before it or something equally as fanatical. Basically, they want magic to run unchecked.” Quinn watched Lynx for any sign of surprise, and surmised that he knew what their faction thought.

“I’m aware. I just didn’t realize it had spread this far. I’ve been gone too long.” Lynx sounded almost sad.

“Should I be worried?” She asked.

Lynx’s eyes began working overtime, as if he was calculating a million different things at once. When he spoke, it was barely with enough attention to direct to her. "You were in a projection, probably a failsafe, from when he attacked you originally. I'm unsure why. He couldn't have known that we had a new librarian, or perhaps, no, the alarm would have gone out to him too.”

The manifestation paused for a moment. Finally he began speaking again. “He would have known the library was back in a functioning capacity, and that it required that specific book. He knew and he had time to make a plan for if something happened to him. Although I am surprised he wasn’t so arrogant that he didn’t. Quinn, I'll make sure that someone is here to guard you," he started.

But Aradie interrupted him with a loud squawk. Lynx finally turned his attention to the owl.

"Well, that's odd," he said thoughtfully. "Aradie hasn't bonded with anyone for millennia. Like, thousands and thousands of years. I guess I don't need someone else to watch over your sleep. You have yourself a companion."

"A companion?” Quinn glanced up at the bird. “Like attached to me?”

“Sort of. It’s a willing thing. Like a familiar. Except she’s related to the Library," Lynx tried to explain. It was obvious that the thought of this gave the manifestation some sort of ease of mind.

"So it's a good thing that I now have an owl-familiar." Quinn wondered what the connection menat.

“Yes,” echoed Aradie's voice in her head as well as Lynx's words outside of it.

"Very well then, I guess I have an owl-familiar. Speaking of which, I need some padding made to protect my shoulder from vicious claws."

“Yes. I’ll see to that.” Lynx paused. “You’ll be able to access Aradie’s information through the interface. Check up on it when you have time. Keep the bond strong. Follow the advice.”

“Okay then.” Quinn adjusted herself in the bed and then threw herself back against the pillows. "How long did I sleep for?" she asked, staring up at the intricately carved ceiling. She only just realized that there was actually a scene carved into it, of books flying to shelves, of golems making their merry way around.

She squinted and gasped. It wasn't a carving, it was moving, like the golems were literally doing the actions down in the library.

Wow, that was almost as good as television. Probably better once they started having library patrons. Oh, that could get fun.

"Quinn!"

She blinked back at Lynx. "Sorry, I got distracted by the ceiling."

He smirked at her. "You only just noticed what it does?"

"Yeah, that's really cool."

"It is, and that's great, but we need to discuss you absorbing some books about mental fortitude." His tone had turned stern.

Quinn blinked at him. "What do you mean, mental fortitude?"

"Look, the Serpentsiril are a reptilian race. They have the ability to worm into your mind, to get under your skin, as it were. I don't want you to risk believing anything they say, or perhaps not understanding what it is they're trying to get you to do at certain stages, if they have any plans like that." He sighed.

Quinn blinked at him. "You mean you think they could, I don't know, hypnotize me or influence me?"

Lynx shrugged. "Maybe. Probably. I haven't had this problem with a librarian before. I also have never had a human librarian assistant, and am thus not up to date on how good your innate mental protections are. Considering how often you broadcast your inner thoughts to the Library, probably not very good."

"You've never had a human librarian?" Quinn asked, curious, and chalking the rest of what he said up to observation and not to an insult.

He shook his head. "Nope, never. Not a one. Not ever in millions of years."

"You're telling me the library is millions of years old?"

Lynx sort of half shook his head, but then nodded. "The library is older than you can imagine. In this format, it's a few hundred thousand years old. But magic and knowledge have always existed. And thus, the library has always been here."

"Okay," Quinn said squinting her eyes at him as if it would wring more of an explanation out, "I can get that. Anyway, back to protecting my mind, you need me to get some mental fortification, is that right?"

"Yeah, mental fortification. You need to make sure that your mind is your own and cannot be infiltrated by anybody else. And doing that, I will come up with a list of books that you will need to absorb. And in the meantime, I'm going to entrust you to Aradie's care."

"Okay," Quinn said. "Is this something I should be worried about?"

Lynx cocked his head to one side. "Not necessarily, as long as you realize that it was a dream and not real, that they were trying to worm into your mind, separating reality and I guess dream or thought walking is very, very important. Even once you've absorbed the abilities."

Quinn nodded. "It's dangerous, right?"

"Let's just say having you as the librarian is fantastic. But having you with your mind under the control of a Serpensiril, that is something we cannot afford."

~~

Well... what did you think?

Much love

KT