LSRO: Chapter 69 - The Lake (Patreon)

Yeeeeeep - I don't write fiction that would take advantage of this chapter number... but I still giggle anyway.

Let's go get to that pillar shall we.

~~

Chapter 69

The Lake

The way Malakai's sword cut a need area of sludge away, while the remnants of the breeze it left behind whisked the sludge to pile on top of more sludge a short distance away, was a fascinating sight to behold. It  was also very time-consuming.

Quinn ran through her mental exercises while he continued to clear away for them. The air down here was thicker, not as filtered as she was used to. No real pun intended there. But there was definitely something less than pleasant about it. The sludge gave off a dimly sulfuric scent. Not the most pleasant.

She glanced over at Lynx, who was supervising while Eric dragged something into view...

"What is that?" she asked.

"It's the skiff." Eric snapped.

"The skiff?" She asked, crossing her arms and casting a glance back at the paddle board he'd indicated earlier.

"Yes, skiff." Lynx inserted while Eric tugged it over and got it ready to put into the clear path of mana water. "We're not all going to fit onto that paddleboard."

Quinn realized that the skiff was very flat, large piece of material, wood-like in appearance. Although it didn't look like any wood that she'd seen before. It was about eight feet wide and about twelve feet long if she had to guess, and at the edges there was about a six-inch lip that should keep any mana liquid from breaking over the side. If mana lakes had waves that is... "That doesn't look very big."

"Well, it's the larger of the choices." Lynx shrugged.

"Can't we just magic one into existence?" She asked.

Lynx spread his arms out, but it was Eric who answered. "Have you looked around here? I don't think we'd need to be doing this if you could just magic down here without chaos trying to rip you apart."

While no one spoke, and Malakai continued his sword work, Quinn realized this chamber was alive with noise. There was a constant sludgy lapping at the shore where they stood, but there was also an underlying sound that she couldn't quite place. It sounded like a pump, maybe? "What is that noise?"

"That's the pump." Lynx answered, not truly paying attention to her. "It maintains the pipes that flush the water into the lake. Partially it's infected mana. So, you know, build up."

"Is it supposed to sound like that?" She asked.

Lynx shook his head. "Nope. But once we get this done, it'll be a whole lot better."

"If you say so." Quinn frowned, and looked at the wide skiff with its two long paddles. "Why doesn't it have a motor?" She asked.

Lynx raised an eyebrow at her. "What good would a motor do in that liquid? Don't you think it would churn everything back together?"

"But don't the filters separate it?" This was getting confusing.

"The filters suck the water through from underneath and cleanse it of chaotic energy and redistribute it to the universe. Generally, there aren't more than sludge flecks on the surface of the lake. If there are leftovers after filtration usually the creatures in the lake will take care of them." Lynx explained calmly.

As if to punctuate his words, there was a dull pop in the middle of the lake, followed by a sucking sound as some sort of eel-like creature jumped like a dolphin. Quinn balked at that. "There are creatures in the lake?"

"They're mana-dense creatures. They're not interested in anything but the mana and the sludge."

"And they're also capable of helping rid the lake of sludge?" Quinn blinked furiously at so much new information.

Lynx nodded. "Without their help, we would have been completely overrun and there would never have been a library to summon you with."

"Good to know." Quinn didn't feel very good about it at all.

Finally, Malakai cleared a very large portion of the sludge away, revealing the beautiful sky blue mana underneath. While the sludge slowly seeped from where it had been piled, it would take a good fifteen to twenty minutes to begin refilling the path he'd cleared. He sheathed his sword and glanced over, some of his usually meticulously tied hair hanging in his face. "So we all get on the skiff and paddle out?"

"Not as such." Lynx said, motioning to Quinn. "You need to come here, place your hand here on the front of the skiff."

Quinn glanced down and it looked like a series of runes, very similar those in Lynx's hair.

"Place your hand on them."

And she did. Suddenly a screen popped up in front of her.

Linking to Librarian

Calibrating...

Calibrating...

Thought directions accepted.

Direct thoughts appropriately.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "So what, now it's going to let me direct it?"

"Yes, we only need the paddles for course correction," Lynx said. "The sludge isn't exactly cooperative."

"Good to know," Eric said, crossing his arms as he hovered in the air again. "There was no way I was going to be able to hold a paddle."

Quinn got into the skiff with Malakai's help and glanced at him. He seemed to be sweating slightly and looked a little pale. "You should probably eat one of these energy balls," she said and gave it to him. He flashed her a weak smile and did exactly as she'd suggested.

"We'll have tomove slowly," he said. "I'll have to clear the way from the bow of the skiff so that we have the ability to cut through the sludge a little easier."

"Okay," she said, glancing up toward the malfunctioning pillar. It had to be at least four football fields away. That was, what, just over a quarter of a mile? This place was massive.

"The distance is deceptive, Quinn," Lynx said. "That is a lot more than a quarter of a mile."

"Why does it seem so close, then?"

"It's all a matter of the layers in this place. It's about a mile away. Think of one of your earthen neighborhood blocks." Quinn looked all around the lake. "Those pillars are all about, what, half a mile apart, then?" She recalibrated how she perceived the entire area.

"Approximately," Lynx said.

Sometimes Quinn wondered if he didn't explain things fully because sometimes the answers were a little too convoluted. She could live with those instances.

Quinn fell silent, directing the skiff toward the pillar, Ganyon. All the while, she maintained her mental barrier exercises, though she doubted she could make them any stronger. She glanced out over the massive lake, pondering its mechanics. She needed diagrams to understand this whole filtration cycle thing. "So... which one of these is Ashiron?"

"Ah." Lynx's eyes darkened and a scowl passed over his face quickly. "Directly opposite Ganyon, on the other side of the lake."

Quinn peered over, squinting. But it was dark and devoid of any movement. The sludge pile up around the base did appear to be heftier than anywhere else. "We'll deal with that one once we've sorted the repairs, right?"

Lynx nodded as his scowl crept back into place.

Every now and then, she thought she saw a bulge in the sludge that covered the top of the mana.

"It's okay," Lynx said, leaning in. "That's just one of our little amphibian friends."

"Are you just going to leave it that vague, or are you going to tell me what they're like?" She paused before adding. "I mean I saw the eel like one dolphin jumping but..."

"Other than that one, they're unlike anything you have on your homeworld. So yes, for now, I'll keep it vague, because that's not why we're here." This time he hesitated before continuing. "When the lake is clear again, we can come watch its inhabitants."

Quinn grinned. She liked that idea.

Malakai performed a miniature version of the sweep he had done to clear their initial path. The skiff rocked fiercely, and Quinn almost toppled over the side as it swayed from side to side.

"Sorry about that," Malakai said. "I'll aim for less impact next time."

Quinn nodded as the skiff continued to move slowly forward, its runes propelling it ever so slightly. She watched Lynx direct the skiff with occasional corrections through one of the paddles. The sound of the pumps in the background reassured her that everything was as it should be... comparatively anyway.

She turned back to look at where they'd come from. About 500 feet separated them from the edge, and she noticed that the sludge already began closing back over their path.

"That doesn't look good," she said.

Lynx shrugged. "Sludge is gonna sludge."

She glared at him. "Where did you get that saying from?"

He shrugged. "I just thought it appropriate."

She rolled her eyes, but couldn't help grinning. "Thanks, Lynx. This feels a little dire down here."

He shook his head. "It's no more dire than anything else that we've had to take care of since you got here."

"Oh, so you mean it's pretty much pertinent to avoid the end of the universe?"

"Precisely," Lynx said. "Everything happens for a reason, Quinn. We just haven't figured out this one yet."

Quinn fell silent after that rather prophetic take on their current circumstances. She decided to take in the first pillar they passed. It wasn't right next to them, but it was gigantic up close. It rose all the way up to the ceiling, seven or eight stories above them, even if just going by the stairs they'd come down. She looked all the way up, craning her neck.

"That's ridiculous. Does it really reach the ceiling of the cavern?"

"Yeah, of course it does. It takes it all up through the pillars in the Library to distribute the mana." Lynx gave her a look that said she should have already figured that out.

"Oh. Interesting," Quinn said. "But the filters don't go all the way up, do they?"

"Nope, they do not. So you won't be quite that high." He smiled at her encouragingly.

"Great, I've never been very good with heights. Five stories versus eight, that should be no problem." Quinn couldn't keep the sarcasm from her voice.

"We're not leaving you to do it alone, Quinn. We've got safety gear."

"I know," she said but right now she was feeling decidedly grumbly. "Why do I have to come and do this? You'd think the librarian could delegate a little more."

"Right now, you have to do it because you are the only one properly hooked into the system. Everything that gets changed down here requires librarian approval. And the only reason we could keep swapping between filters for so long was because the Library was in emergency mode. That alone enables certain criteria to be overruled and run solely by me. So right now, you are required to do this. But going forth, the Library should have enough power that it won't need to use your energy and your corporeal form, shall we say, to do it."

Quinn clenched her fists in an effort to stop them shaking. "It's just... it's a lot all at once."

"There's nothing we can do about it." Lynx's voice was soft, and reassuring. With perhaps a hint of pity. "We're almost there, Quinn. Just a little bit more and things will get easier."

And that's when Quinn noticed the strange, bloody reddish-black fog that rose up off the sludge the farther out in the lake they got.

"What is that?" she asked, popping another one of the chaos resistance balls into her mouth for good measure, even though there was still a good thirty minutes left on the other one.

"Oh," Lynx said, glancing at it, "that would be chaos miasma, I guess you could call it. It's not usually here when the filters are up and working properly, but like I said, we have an excess of chaotic energy down here and well, that's one of the side-effects."

"So the fish or sea creatures or whatever they are, they don't absorb that?" She was still eyeing it warily.

"No. No, they do not. That is part of what needs to be filtered." He tapped her armor. "And it's why you wear these, and consume the resistance balls. Just to be on the safe side."

Every few minutes, the skiff shook and they all braced as Malakai continued to clear the way ahead of them. Quinn eyed the miasma with a very apprehensive feeling growing in her stomach. She was beginning to have an attack of the nerves. "So how will we do this?

"Eric will fly up with the filters next to you while we strap you and Malakai into the harnesses that you'll be able to scale the pillars with." Lynx said very matter-of-factly.

"Are you kidding me?" she said. "I have to scale that?"

"How else did you think you'd replace the filters." Lynx actually sounded shocked.

"Really? Have you done it yourself, Lynx?" Quinn glared at him.

"No, but I've been there while it's been done. Sometimes we have to resort to manual means of accomplishing goals. So let's just get the Library power stockpile filled up, and then you're not going to have to do this much."

Quinn being angry with Lynx for the state of things wasn't productive and it really wasn't fair either, but that didn't mean that she wasn't pissed off that she had to do all of this stuff when she hadn't even applied for the position like the assistants had. "Fine. So Eric will fly the supplies up and I will replace the filters. What's Malakai going to be doing up there?"

"Making sure you don't get hurt." Another comment by Lynx that sounded as if he thought she should already know these answers.

Quinn calmed her breathing, and her mind and finally spoke again. "How's he supposed to make sure I don't get hurt?"

Lynx pointed above them.

She glanced up and realized that something was flying around up near the cavern ceiling. They'd looked like dots at first, but now she saw they were moving. "What are those?" she asked.

"While Aradie may be able to take care of some of those, as she has been doing since she flew down the steps ahead of us. Malakai will make sure none of them get you in the air."

"You mean they might dive-bomb me?"

"Or worse." Lynx said, "Those are chaotic miasma manifestations. Like I said, it's not a frequent occurrence. It's just got really bad down here."

Quinn used the calming exercises again. They were drawing closer and closer to the Ganyon pillar. And it rose up above her. They were almost there. Just as the skiff began to pull across the Ganyan filtration pillar, Quinn got a message pop up,

Mental Barrier Level Three.

And that was when something bumped into the skiff from underneath. Quinn stumbled to the side, barely catching herself on the pole support, only to turn around and see Malakai in the midst of completely overbalancing. He had been, she thought, about to take one of his strikes to clear the rest of the way. His arms flailed, including his sword, and she had to duck under it as she reached forward, grabbing onto the pole next to her and managed to catch his hand. The strain pulled at her until he righted himself.

"Thanks, Quinn." He seemed a bit shocked. "That was entirely too embarrassing.

Quinn turned around to Lynx and said, "I thought these amphibian creatures were supposed to be friendly."

"Well, they are, they're just a little eager to meet you, maybe." He winked at her.

The skiff practically grated into place next to stone steps that went down into the sludge. Lynx tied them off with a rope, and then helped them all onto the stairs. The base of the colossal colum was much larger than Quinn had expected. It must have been a good forty feet square.

As her foot hit the main landing of the pillar a popup flashed in front of her.

Welcome Librarian, to Pillar Ganyon

Status: Infected Replacement Urgent

Treatment: Required

Effect: Dangerous

Do you wish to synchronize?

Yes or No

~~

Tadaaaaa and there you have a little more about the Library.

It's a complex being.

Filter replacement is gonna be fun!

Much love

KT