LSRO: Chapter 61 - Discussion (Patreon)

Merry whatever you do or do not celebrate! I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season.

We have a few chapters upcoming that are going to delve into the nitty gritty exactly what problems the Library is having. So I do hope you enjoy them.

As always I do love feedback.

Thank you for being here!

[Edit] This is Monday 25th December's post. I forgot to hit schedule... so you have it early! Happy Holiday season!

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Chapter 61

Discussion

Myriad responses ran through Quinn's head, but she settled on perhaps the most disturbing. Are these files a part of your computer system brain thing?

Yes, the Library said and paused. They're integral.

Then why can't you access them? Quinn asked, pushing down on any potential panic she could feel rising up. Surely there was a logical way to deal with the fact that the Library couldn't access specific portions of its brain... memory banks... whatever.

There was another long hesitation before the Library responded this time. I don't know.

"Okay," Quinn said and looked up as the lighting in her office flickered ever so slightly. She sat up as the floor began to rumble beneath her feet. It was nothing like the vertigo spell she'd had when she was pulled from Earth to the Library. Not that sort of tremoring, more like a very subtle shaking.

Are you okay? Quinn asked.

The library let out what was almost an audible sigh and the trembling stopped. I attempted to access the locked information from a different angle, the Library said. Obviously, I was not successful.

So basically you should be able to access every single thing in your mind, for want of a better word.

Technically, the Library said, technically all information is accessible because it's all contained within me. However, there are patches right now that are blacked out, they're memories that Lynx cannot access. It seems neither of us can access this.

Quinn leaned forward and accessed the console she built into her desk. It was similar to the one at the check-in desk but this seemed like a little sister version of it. Does this have everything the check-in desk has? She asked.

It only lacks the ability to return books.

"Okay, makes sense. That way I avoid the temptation to let people access it from my office." Quinn blinked as she realized she hadn't directed that thought internally as she had been doing.

"Is everything okay?" Dottie asked, trotting closer.

Quinn had forgotten the bench was in her office with her. She almost jumped out of her chair when she heard Dottie speak. "Everything will be fine," Quinn said in her most upbeat voice.

"You realize you sound about as convincing as three-day-old tuna, right?" The tone of Dottie's voice sounded like the bench would have raised an eyebrow if she had one.

Quinn laughed and then crinkled her nose at the idea of three-day-old tuna. "That's gross."

"Yes, and your response to me was an outright lie." Dottie was pouting.

Quinn felt a tad guilty. They were all in this together after all. "Seriously. As far as I know, everything is going to be okay, I just didn't tell you how long that was going to take. Mainly, because I have no idea myself."

"Semantics," the bench said, but she sounded slightly mollified.

Quinn heard footsteps coming toward them rapidly, running in fact, and she wasn't surprised when Lynx popped into view directly in front of her, with Milaro and Malakai opening the door shortly thereafter.

"What can I do for you, three musketeers?" she asked.

They all frowned at her, not understanding her reference in the least. Uncultured swine everywhere. Who didn't know the three musketeers? She noticed that Lynx was flickering in and out right then, just like the lights had not too long ago. His eyes were doing that rapid eyelid movement thing again, which meant he wasn't going to hear a word that she said. It took far too much effort to stand up and balance something on his head to see how long it would take him to come around, but she did contemplate it.

"He began flickering when the lights did, and then he went into that shutdown mode where he does that," Malakai gestured, and paused, his brow furrowing. "Not sure how he ported into here while in that state though."

Quinn wasn't sure how that happened either.

"Are you okay? I felt the tremors." Malakai's tone shifted to one of concern.

She nodded. "I'm fine."

"The Library seems to be having a few glitches," Milaro said, watching her without a hint of a smile. Usually, he was all about levity. Right now, not so much.

"Yeah, glitches," Quinn answered. That was just it. The Library seemed to be having a lot more than just a few glitches. Things were starting to compile and snowball and do whatever things did when they gained momentum before finally exploding.

It's not that dire, the Library bit out at her.

Okay, she thought, trying to keep her tone neutral in her mind.

There was a knock at the door. Quinn looked up to see Siliqua and Hirish standing there expectantly.

"Come in," Quinn said, not liking the odds of her getting to repair any books, figuring out the Library situation on her own, or reading through the next book on chaotic magic. Still, the Library's current state was obviously very important. "What do you have for me?"

"Um, I have something we need to ask Lynx." Siliqua wouldn't meet Quinn's eyes.

Quinn shrugged and pointed at where Lynx was still very obviously out of it. "He's not with us."

Those purple eyes flickered once more, and Lynx shook himself. "I'm back."

"Were you trying to find..." she asked him but he cut her off.

"I was trying to access that file. I can't access the information."

"Well at least that's both of you," Quinn said, still unsure why Lynx would be able to access it when the Library couldn't but she'd figure that out one day. She turned to the wood elf. "Anyway, what's the question?"

But before Siliqua could answer, Lynx butted in first. "I need to know, does the access to this locked section of my memory have anything to do with the rest of the corruption you're cleaning out of the system?"

Siliqua hesitated. "That's difficult to say. It is both yes and it also is not."

"What do you mean it both is and isn't?" Quinn said, trying not to let her temper get the best of her. She hated it when people were ambiguous. Milaro, at least, made it seem funny. Siliqua, right now, was making it sound as if she was keeping something from all of them.

"We need to research more. I don't know the Library systems intimately. No one knows the Library systems intimately except for the Library, its manifestation, and you." Siliqua let the silence following the statement punctuate if for her.

Quinn took a step back. "I guess that makes sense. I just..."

"It is, as far as I can tell from the same time-period, but not precisely the same method. That is why it is both a yes and a no." Siliqua seemed to have calmed down now.

"Thanks." Quinn let out a sigh.

"I realize it's worrisome but we'll figure it out." Milaro said, then turned to his friend. "Lynx, resetting has revealed a lot of complex problems. I realize you weren't expecting the problems. How can we help?"

Lynx shrugged, in an oddly human way. "I wasn't expecting anything. I assumed, apparently wrongly, that in rebooting we would essentially reset the systems and allow ourselves a breather while we gathered more power, slowly gaining access to all of the files, all of the abilities, and everything that we needed to get the Library fully functional again. These complications didn't occur to me. I don't even know where to start."

"No precedence then?" Milaro asked, and he looked like he was trying to be extremely careful with his next words. His brow was furrowed, and he touched his chin with his thumb. "Weren't there ways you could have functioned for at least a while longer without a librarian."

Lynx's eyes blinked, his double eyelids rapidly moving back and forth. "We've never been without a Librarian before, is that what you mean?"

"I mean, couldn't you have recalled the books and had them at least returned, thus giving the Library some more power to tide it over?" Milaro was pressing the issue, and Quinn didn't understand why. Hadn't they already established that wouldn't have worked?

Lynx raised an eyebrow. "That's not how it works, and you know that. If the librarian isn't linked to the core, the Library... loses some of its primary functions. That includes both returning and borrowing books. Usually, that wouldn't be a problem, because the next librarian is ushered in decades before the current librarian retires. Sometimes some assistants already have librarian abilities because of their matching affinities. But in this case, as we frantically searched and lost more and more of them until there was no one, with ultimately librarian connected to the core. The Library's functions shut down."

"Isn't that a bit of a faulty design?" Quinn asked. Lynx shot her a withering look.

"No. It's meant to be a failsafe. It is meant to keep the Library in check. As you see, I am fully capable of making my own decisions, thinking for myself, and executing any type of plan I wish to. The librarian's presence means that the Library must operate within the confines of magical filtration that are set out to keep magic in balance. If only one side had access to the filtration system, then, maybe over time, they could stagnate and become less than ideal. However two entities required for the Library to function was considered a failsafe."

"So all you could do was keep the filters running and hope you could find a librarian." Milaro muttered the words, obviously deep in thought himself.

Quinn wanted to learn how to read minds.

"Basically, we've been over this before." Lynx was using his grumpy tone.

Quinn spoke up. "We haven't been over this before. We've been over everything else. We've skirted around the edges of this before. But you've never actually told us that the Library and librarian require each other to function on the optimal level."

"Well, consider yourselves told," he said. "I shut down because I had to maintain what little power I had. We did not foresee any problem with being able to reboot the systems back into functionality. It's as simple as that."

Quinn could tell from the look on Milaro, Siliqua and Hirish's face that that was not the case for them. She wondered if they were all thinking what she was thinking. It all seemed very convenient. The files, unable to be accessed, memories that neither the Library nor Lynx could see, all of this pointed toward somebody deliberately sabotaging the Library. And if what Lynx was saying was correct, then that couldn't have been anyone other than Korradine, because she was the only one with access.

Quinn doubted it had been put in place by Korradine's predecessor, because Korradine, as far as Lynx had mentioned, was the librarian for thousands of years. She didn't say any of it out loud, but she knew she wasn't the only one thinking it, and she made sure to lock those thoughts away from the Library, even if she was fairly certain that the Library entity was thinking about it themselves.

"Excellent," Milaro said. "I am required back in my home world. I will take my leave of you for a couple of days."

Quinn raised an eyebrow at him. While she knew he'd have to go home and like rule his subjects, it seemed suspiciously convenient. "You really have been spending a lot of time here."

He smiled ruefully. "I know. The Library has always held a certain level of fascination for me, I guess you'd say. Plus, I've always liked Lynx's company."

Lynx shot him an unreadable look.

"What? It's true," Milaro said, raising his hands in the air as if he was doing so in self-defence. He then lowered his voice and spoke to Quinn in a conspiratorial tone. "Just keep an eye on him."

"Not like I'm going anywhere," Quinn said.

Milaro chuckled. "You know you could quite literally go anywhere, right?"

She grinned. "Oh, I know."

Milaro walked out of the room. Siliqua's gaze flickered nervously between Quinn and the manifestation. "We will attempt to delve deeper into this."

Quinn nodded slowly and was going to ask a question about the previous librarian, about potential saboteurs, and about trying to understand what she definitely didn't understand right now.

"It's okay, Quinn," Siliqua said, patting her hand ever so briefly. "We'll get to the bottom of this." And with that she turned to leave.

Hirish followed her out silently, and Quinn couldn't help but wonder if they were going to find out what this all was, perhaps a little bit too late to help any of them.

She turned to speak to Lynx only to see him blink out of her vision without a word.

Quinn tried to prod the Library for an explanation but got no response whatsoever.

Either it was busy conversing with Lynx, comparing notes, diving into files, or it was busy with Siliqua and Hirish. Perhaps the Library was just sulking.

Quinn let out a long, suffering sigh, moved out of her chair and Aradie launched herself off the back to come with her. Plopping herself down in front of the pile that Carty had left, she surveyed the amount of work in front of her. Aradie let out a long, mournful hoot.

"You should go visit your friends." Quinn said, scritching the bird behind her neck.

Aradie leveled herself to look Quinn in the eyes and added another soft hoot as if she was asking if Quinn was sure.

"Yeah. Off you go."

Aradie took off and out the door. Quinn watched her for a moment and turned back to the books, the conversation about the missing files still digesting in the back of her mind. There was something she couldn't quite put her finger on. She may as well practice repairing books. She needed the distraction.

Quinn picked up the first book, closed her eyes as she rubbed at the spine, felt the cover, and realized the stitching was loose and some of the pages had been ripped. She opened her eyes and looked at it, opened it up, and kept her hands on the back side of the book so she was touching the binding. It felt serene and relaxing.

Right then, with all the other worries about the Library, this was exactly what she needed. She breathed in and breathed out, accessed her skills, and activated book reparation.

Book Restoration. Activating.

A breeze came out of nowhere and felt like it was suffusing her body and the book in front of her. The pages rippled ever so gently and she could practically see the damaged ones knitting themselves back together. The spine solidified as the stitches returned to their old glory. And finally, the book felt whole again.

She grinned. "That was cool," she said out loud.

"Certainly was," Dottie said. "I haven't seen anybody do that in 500 years."

Quinn smiled back at the chair.

Malakai, who she'd totally forgotten was still in the room, spoke up. "That was actually really cool. I've never seen that done before."

Quinn grinned, trying to push back the worry she felt. "Thirty books should help me get my skills somewhat under control. As long as I have thread, paper and glue, and my ability, I can fix these books. And then, once I get better at it -- I'm gonna fix the whole damn library."

~~

She has so much to do. So much to learn. So many skills to work on and improve. Maybe I should give her one of those stasis chambers like they had in Dragon Ball Z? Lol

As always - hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you thought.

Much love

KT