LSRO: Chapter 58 - Pages (Patreon)

So...

Before we get to working on the chaotic magic filters... we have to understand what chaotic magic is, right?

This chapter is a little rougher. I'm not 100% happy with it. I AM happy with the progress... I feel like I've told a little too much in this. It's almost (or maybe it is) a little info dumpy.

Anyhu 

Here you go

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Chapter 58

Pages

Quinn looked down at both of her hands. A few of the pages were still scattered in her hands although the binding lay on the table. She couldn't think of anything to say. The book had literally just fallen apart in her hands. Misha suddenly appeared at her side, peering down at the book. A look of consternation was on their otherwise usually impassive face.

"Hmm," Misha said, "This is not what was expected."

"Unexpected, all right," Link said, a hint of shock in his voice.

"Aradie, got get Narilin." Quinn finally said. The bird didn't even hoot, it just took off like an arrow and shot toward the book hospital.

"I've never seen that happen to a book before," Milaro said, his voice trailing off. Quinn had to admit, neither had she.

"Well," Malakai said, "you haven't been stuck in a chaotic realm for a few hundred years, have you?"

Milaro shot his grandson a very withering look.

Footsteps echoed throughout the hall and Quinn turned to watch the amazing Salosier running toward them. She never thought that she'd see Narilin running toward her. That was a first, perhaps even a last. Aradie flew out in front of the book doctor, guiding her to the desk.

Quinn heard Narilin draw in a breath, a shocked gasp, and even the leaves down the back of her head rustled in their own type of shock.

"What happened here?" Narilin said, "How?" There was genuine distress in her voice. She trembled as she reached out to touch the pages and her voice shook when she continued speaking. "The pages themselves are still quite sturdy. It's as if the binding dissolved. I think I might be able to restore this. Is this one of the books on chaos filtration?" She asked.

Quinn turned to Lynx, leaving the floor to him.

"Yes, it is."

"Then I will move it up my list and work on it immediately. I will make haste with this repair." Narilin said. "I'm sorry." The latter was no longer directed at the people surrounding her. She was speaking to the book as she carefully gathered all of the pages together and the binding, placing them reverently in her hands and lifted them gently. Just before she stepped out of the check-in desk area, she turned back.

"We will speak of maintaining books in their proper habitat once I have managed to fix this one," she said, a serious glint in her eyes. She turned her back and walked sedately, as was her usual custom, back to the book infirmary.

Quinn blinked as Aradie settled back on her shoulder.

"Well, I'm glad we have a book doctor," Quinn said, still reeling a bit from the shock of the book falling apart in her hands. She glanced at Lynx. "So, can we just get started without that one?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I told you you could get started with just three of them. We didn't have to wait for the fourth to bake. There's no need to snap at me because one of them fell apart," Quinn said. "I wasn't the one keeping them in a chaotic freaking chest that snapped at me and tried to eat my heart out."

Lynx actually laughed. "Yeah, yeah, you're right. I apologize." They were going to spend days just apologizing to each other at some point, Quinn could already tell.

"Okay, so which one should we start with?" Quinn asked.

Lynx shrugged, "Before you consider that, you have to know something about this information. You need to understand that these books aren't like the ones that you've already absorbed. And they require both absorption, which will go slower, so you'll need a few hours, and reading. You'll be able to read faster because of who and what you are, and because of, you know, magic, but you will have to read and absorb the knowledge. It will take you a couple of days."

"A couple of days?" Quinn shrugged, "But I can eat and sleep in that time, right?"

Milaro chuckled, "Of course you can, right Lynx?"

Lynx visibly gulped. "Well, yes, of course you can eat and sleep." He looked like he had been reminded yet again that she was an organic creature, and thus needed that whole sustenance and rest thing.

She chuckled, "It's okay Lynx, I get it."

He sighed, "I am not up to my usual standard, but I'll get there."

"So do I just go pull up a beanbag and sit down and memorize these books?" Quinn asked, "You're not going to give me a lecture about them or something?"

Lynx shook his head, "No, this is something I can't help you with."

"You or the Library as a whole?"

Lynx chuckled, "The library will not vacate your head while you read anything. If you need assistance, I guess I'll always be there in some form or another."

Quinn gave Lynx a long, hard look. "Fine, I'm holding you to that. And I am going to go and find a corner of the Library to sit down and be inspired by these other three books." She picked up all three of them and tucked them under her arms, regretting it almost immediately as she realized just how heavy the three o them combined were.

Oh well, she thought, I'm committed now. Plus, she felt stronger since she'd begun training with Malakai. Without another word, she exited the check-in desk and made her way through the Library to one of the back corners where a big, cushy couch sat. It was the sort of couch she'd have thought suited Earth better, as long as it sat in front of an 80-inch television. It was soft, fluffy, huge, and the perfect place to lie down and lose herself in some books.

Once she'd settled down, letting her back sink into the massive cushions, she pulled the first book onto her lap. "No time like the present to read Laws of Chaos Upside Down." She opened the book, placing her hands each on either side, closed her eyes, and willed it to teach her everything that it could. Little bits, fragments, flowed through to her. Languages, history, images, both violent and not. She frowned. None of it made sense. Even when she closed her eyes again and opened the first page, going back, she realized that while she could read the words, the content didn't stick.

"Okay, how about Chaos Theory, Myth and Legend? Sounds like it could be the first one," she muttered under her breath, suddenly aware that Lynx had never asked her question about which order to read them in.

You could have asked me, the Library said.

"Well, I..." Quinn knew the Library was right. "Fine, what order should I be reading these books in?"

Chaos Theory, Myth and Legend. Reality Combined, Chaos Fever Dream. Laws of Chaos Upside Down. And then Mastering Your Reality Through Chaos.

"Oh, well at least the broken book isn't going to get in my way of reading these three."

No, it's not, the Library said. And there was a pause, one that hinted the Library wasn't done speaking yet.

Quinn waited as patiently as she was able, which wasn't very much at all. "Oh, come on, finish that thought," she said to it.

It's nothing important. Just that it's very fortunate that book was the one broken.

"You mean it's an uncanny coincidence?" Quinn raised an eyebrow.

Yes, the Library said, with what sounded like a long-suffering mental sigh. Far too much lately has been coincidence, Quinn. I am really starting not to like this.

Quinn wasn't sure whether she should be worried that the Library was unimpressed by the amount of coincidences that had happened lately. But it really did seem worried. As much as a universal magical library in its own little pocket dimension could worry...

Quinn shook her head to clear those thoughts. Coincidence or not, she still needed to learn and understand the role of chaos when it came to magic. She pulled Chaos Theory, Myth, and Legend onto her lap, opened it, and placed her hands over either side to absorb the knowledge that she could.

This time, images began to make sense.

It unfolded gradually in her mind like it was playing an infomercial.

Chaotic power was the first thing to exist in the universe. It bounced around, flitting from one sector to the next, creating bubbles planets and worlds, meteors and suns, moons and comets. The universe didn't exist without chaos, and chaos had nothing to feed on without the universe. A perfect symmetry of creation and energy...  until it wasn't.

She opened her eyes and began to read. Chaotic power, being the first power in the universe, wreaked havoc everywhere it went, on everything it touched. While it initially created life and that's how all of the worlds came to be, the chaotic energy no longer had an outlet. It grew too large and encompassing. There weren't many choices for the energy. It was either expand more, consuming everything it created, or else consume itself.

Very little in the universe would choose to consume itself.

Primordial beings attempted to intervene, but the energy didn't like that.

Quinn gasped as more images assaulted her mind.

A world broken and bleeding with lava and ruin. It reminded her of the Dabilia's homeworld, now just a cracked formation of igneous rock. Other worlds split by glaciers running through to the core, iced over by ruined atmospheres...

Chaotic energy allowed to run rampant: ruined worlds. Chaos became dangerous to everyone and everything around it. But that didn't negate the fact that chaos essence was necessary for the universe's creation and survival. But the concentrated and undiluted form in which it first traversed the universe, was a destructive power, unimaginable, when it wasn't centered on the purpose of creation.

Several ancient species banded together to find a solution.

Quinn frowned as she read further through the book. It was very vague about these species - it didn't use names, there were no pictures, and no comparisons she could extrapolate from. She made a mental note to look up what these primordial species were. She'd met the Dabilians in their stone forms, but they obviously weren't the only primordial species. The book hinted at big creatures, small creatures, magical beings who were made of the elements, not to mention chaotic elements themselves.

The ones who came together to keep primordial chaos under control.

To tame the magic.

With that small revelation, Quinn moved on. Even as she opened the next book, she already felt a surge of difference running through her.

She glanced up at the windows, high above. Faint pale purple mist surrounded them. Even as she looked down she could see it all throughout the Library when she looked now. Was that magic?

It's not magic. It's the remnants of chaos that help keep the Library in operation.

Quinn did a double take. Say what?

When you pull on the tamed chaotic energies, you are using magic. That same power is what fuels the Library, and what the Library distributes to everyone out there.

The Library's tone was gentle. For just a second, Quinn could almost feel what type of entity the Library was. And then it was gone. Just out of reach.

Not now. There's too much to do.

Quinn wasn't sure, but she could have sworn the Library sighed.

More food for her thoughts.

She moved on to Reality Combined - Chaos Fever Dream.

The history was written in a rather omnipotent style. It was difficult for her to get her head around, almost as if it was trying to play out in her mind and show her images and pictures of what had actually been before. Now, she had an inherent knowledge, a feeling of the destructive capacity that chaos yielded, of why it couldn't just be allowed to run rampant.

Chaos could create beautiful and amazing things, but when it wasn't outputting that much power, it still needed that much power. This meant it drained it from everything it had created. It would lead to a cycle of creation and destruction that just ate the entire universe, consumed it whole. This book, however, told of councils, meetings, trial and error, and the ways they fought to keep chaos going unchecked and ripping the world it created apart; from undoing everything it had done.

She shivered, suddenly cold.

It is a lot to take in, Quinn. You don't need to do it all at once, the library told her gently, in that second reminding her of the grandmother who always told her that it was her choice how much or how little she did.

Quinn decided that if she'd been chosen for this, she needed to do a lot. So, she continued reading.

There was so much more information. The wiping out of complete species and planets, worlds she'd never heard of and would never get to visit. So much more destruction, with a little bit more creation on the side, before the council finally got Chaos under control. Even though it really was a misnomer.

Chaos was never under control.

It was simply regulated so that it didn't begin to turn on the entire universe and rip it apart.

There were several rituals to do what needed to be done, so many different items were required to fuel the filtration system that eventually, the library and thus the ability to filter through chaotic power was established.

The filters were placed under the core room.

Quinn sat up straight at that.

Underneath the core room? She hadn't even seen a way down to a below the core room.

She looked around, still alone, and glad for it. Her neck had a crick in it and the light coming in from up above had dimmed, making the Library lighting activate.

Quinn wondered how long she'd been at this. She glanced at the time on her HUD and reeled. She'd been at this for almost half the day. Her stomach chose then to grumble, and Quinn decided that it would be a good idea to eat first before she continued.

But she wasn't about to let these books out of her sight, ever.

They were going to have to do something about important books like this and the first four that she'd been sent to retrieve. They needed a restricted section, for want of a better word, perhaps more of a "vitally important books that you can't remove from the library on pain of death" section. She liked that name better.

Hopping up, she pulled all three books to her. But as she did so, the book she'd just been reading fell open at a page a little farther on from where she'd been. The cleansing of the filtration system involved a lot of items, a lot of constant maintenance, a lot of regular work that should have been done by the librarian even before the library was forced to close.

Quinn squinted at a highlighted line at the very bottom of a page. It was written into the filigree work around the edges of each of the pages. Scribbled in rushed hand writing and not like the neatness of every other magical tome she'd seen that it really caught her attention.

Replacement Ashiron X982 faulty. Third reminder failed.

Maybe the sabotage went back a lot longer than they'd ever imagined.

~~

I think it might need some tweaking, but the info is there... it's a very Quinn chapter.

Tell me what you thought?

Much love

KT