LSRO: Chapter 71 - Reset Accomplished (Patreon)

Hey there everyone! So I'm back with another chapter - but I take it you're not surprised. 

Let's get those pillars restarted shall we.

~~

Chapter 71

Reset Accomplished

Quinn couldn't quite get out of her head how amazing that release of power had been. It surged through her body, out of her hand in a rush of strength and certainty. It left all her senses tingling, wanting to use more of that power. Not necessarily to inflict gravity on head-sized flies, but in general, to have access to it and to be able to accomplish tasks with power she could never have imagined as a child.

Still, there was a lot more left to do, and now at least she had an agenda for what she would be doing with any spare time she now had. Stronger wasn't even an excuse anymore. It was a cold, hard fact.

Then a thought occurred to her. "Don't the miasma drones feed off the sludge?" she asked, turning to Lynx, who was still gaping at her. "Close your jaw, Lynx. Answer the question."

He blinked himself out of his mild case of shock and answered. "No, they don't feed off the sludge. They feed off the miasma that rises from it. They kind of plummeted through that. I'm pretty sure the eels and the rest of the sludge are taking care of them."

"Really?" Quinn said, somewhat disappointed. Although she didn't like the idea of them flying back up to the platform newly empowered or something. "It would have been much more satisfying to drop them onto a solid floor. I'll have to remember that for next time."

"Next time?" Lynx asked, raising an eyebrow. "Are you planning to come down here and drop a lot of miasma drones onto solid surfaces just for the fun of it?"

Quinn laughed. "Of course I'm not planning on doing that. I just mean when I need to use this ability again."

"Yeah," Lynx looked at her with a different light in his eyes. Quinn thought it might even be slightly calculating.

She cleared her throat and looked back at the row of filters she was working on. "Okay, well, we're almost done with this row and we can move on again."

Even while she took out, disposed of, and replaced the slow with fresh filters again, Quinn couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in what she'd accomplished. It was just one spell or ability or whatever it was, but it worked. What's more, she had simply known somewhere deep down exactly what she needed to do because the book had told her.

Maybe absorbing the books wasn't the only way to learn the magic within. Maybe it took time to stew over the knowledge it imparted. Perhaps she needed to allow the books to direct her when her knowledge became a necessity.

The platform moved around another corner and they started yet another row. It was monotonous enough that she could run over everything she'd just done in her head, analyze her movements, and recall how much energy or mana it had taken her to perform that action. It was a lot less than she had thought.

Energy consumption: 40

Mana consumption: 80

Surely that had been a lot more than 80's worth of power.

The whole incident meant that now Aradie was able to stay closer to the platform. It seemed that the rest of the not-so-little miasma drones decided staying away from the people working on the pillar was probably a better idea than plummeting to their deaths below. Maybe they even operated off a hive mind. That way they'd be able to, well, communicate with each other like they were apparently doing.

The work carried on and on. Her shoulders ached and she used her healing capabilities again. Her stomach rumbled and they paused and ate food again.

So many hours passed that she lost count.

Finally, finally, she replaced the very last one. And they hopped out of the moving platform onto the solidity of the filtration pillar. There must have been some constant movement on the platform they used because when Quinn's feet hit the actual ground she felt like she was still swaying ever so slightly.

Sort of like when you get off an airplane and feel like you're still swaying.

"My neck is killing me," she said.

Malakai gave her a sympathetic smile. "We were up there for like 17 hours. I'm surprised you're still cohesive."

"Really?" Quinn said. "I don't feel tired."

"You healed yourself like four times while we were up there," Malakai said. "That'll rejuvenate all of your muscles and your energy levels. So, of course you don't feel drained. But that doesn't replace a lack of sleep, it just makes you feel better about it. It's not the best way to deal with the fatigue."

"Whatever, Dad..." she said.

Malakai laughed. "Don't call me that again. Funny but way too weird."

She thought it over and realized it really was. She was way too old to be using that as an insult. "Sorry. I might be a lot more tired than I think."

"It's all good." He gave her a brief pat on the shoulder and moved down to the skiff area.

"Quinn, over here," Lynx called. She walked over and stood in front of one of the control panels that were interspersed throughout the entire pillar. "This is the main panel you'll need to activate the pillar to reset itself."

She brought up the HUD.

Ganyon Pillar Filtration Capacity rectified.

Filtration Capacity: 100%

Initialize Reboot followed by Reset?

Yes, or No?

Quinn shrugged. "I guess that's a Yes, we want to reboot the filtration system of Ganyon."

There was a shuddering as everything powered down. For a split second, Quinn wondered if she'd done the right thing. What if it couldn't boot back up? What if they then only had one filter pillar? What if they couldn't boot up one of the other filters?

After what seemed like a very long moment, it shuddered once more and all of the lights began to shine. One after another they lit up in a cascade effect all the way up the entire pillar until it was completely lit up with those beautiful blue lights.

She watched in awe, marveling at the lights. "I guess we did it."

"Almost," Lynx said. "Now reset it."

Quinn blinked at him. "What do you mean? Doesn't it do the same thing?"

"No, rebooting meant a complete recalibration and rebooting of the entire system from its base up. Cleansed the interior and its complete and utter functional systems. Resetting means that you need to reset the filter pattern." The manifestation explained it like it should have been prior knowledge.

"Oh, sure," she said, and asked it to do that too. It was probably more information she was supposed to get on transfer. At some stage, that excuse was going to get very old.

When they'd first arrived at the pillar, there was an ever so slight vibration beneath her feet. Quinn attributed it to the fact that they were on a body of moving liquid, which would naturally lend some vibrations to everything.

However, as the reset took place, she could feel the power within the pillar start to well up, power that far exceeded her own abilities. Quinn realized that those initial vibrations had been whatever mechanism, magic, or power that made the filtration system work.

A soft, low thrumming began underneath her feet. It was almost like one of those bed massagers set on low that went through her entire body. The tightness in her shoulders eased ever so slightly, as did the crick in her neck.

"Wow," Quinn said. "That's some powerful stuff."

"Yes," Lynx said. "Some of the majesty is returning to the Library." His tone held a hint of wonder.

Quinn couldn't blame him. She wasn't sure if it was just her mind playing tricks on her, but he seemed less pale, less see-through even without tapping into power from the Library. The lights began to flicker through greens, to blues, to deep blues, occasional blacks, and all around them, the water began to churn ever so subtly, pulling the black sludge remnants of the chaotic magic down and presumably into the filter.

Filter Restoration: level two.

Filtration Chamber Navigation: level two.

Librarian, please navigate the controls.

Quinn blinked at the notifications in front of her. Then turned to Lynx "What does this all mean?"

"Well, it should be hooking up to you now because it's operational again, you know, minimally, but the filtration chamber is now operating at its bare minimum instead of below it." Lynx shrugged like he was only speaking common sense.

He looked so relieved that Quinn wondered how much time the Library had really had left in it before she got there. From everything she'd seen, they had been downplaying the severity of its status.

She looked at the prompt and thought, What the hell... She clicked yes.

A feeling like a warm flush of heated air suffused her entire body. It took away all fatigue and any lingering pains, so much more than the tremors had when they raced through her body. This took her to the next level. Her mind felt clearer than it had in weeks.

Synchronization with Main Library Core Reestablished.

Additional Filter Pillar Activation Possible in 47 hours, 35 minutes, and 26 seconds.

This can be done remotely. Asheron pillar is malfunctioning. Do not enable Asheron pillar. Caution advised.

"Can I make it so that Asheron pillar cannot be reactivated without my prior authorization?" She asked the control panel.

Asheron pillar restricted. No one other than the librarian may reactivate Asheron pillar. Lock in place.

"Well, that should give us time to figure out whatever was up with that note in my book." Quinn muttered to herself. She frowned and then realized that everybody was staring at her.

"Don't mind us," Eric said. "Just have a nice little conversation with yourself."

"You know I'm not speaking to myself," Quinn said. "The pillar is talking to me."

Lynx raised an eyebrow. "The pillar is talking to you."

"The interface is talking with me. The whole core system, whatever.  But this pillar in particular is the one that started it." She realized she sounded a little childish.

Lynx cleared his throat, his entirely incorporeal throat. "Well, we should really get back to shore."

"Should we though?" Quinn said.

"Yes, we should," Malakai chimed in.

Eric glanced at them all. "Well, I'm done here. You don't need me to get back, right? I'm off." And he literally took off, zooming across the lake.

"Would be nice to be able to fly," Quinn mused.

"You'll get there soon enough," Lynx said.

"Fly?" Quinn turned to him in surprise.

"Well, yes, you can already hover to get out of the way of things. So flying is just, you know, the next three or four logical steps." Lynx shrugged and flickered, reappearing on the skiff.

Quinn sometimes wasn't sure if the manifestation was pulling her leg or not. But in this case, she was going to choose to believe him and use that as something to aim toward.

"Well, let's get going then," she said. "I think, I think we all need sleep."

Malakai chuckled. "You definitely need sleep. Your words sound tired."

"Well, maybe I am a bit tired. I did just spent five minutes communicating with a pillar." She looked out over the entire lake, at all the darkened pillars. "So which one's Asheron? Again?"

Lynx pointed in the direction. It was about halfway back on the very far side. "That's Asheron."

"Okay. I can see..." She pondered that for a moment. It would be the most difficult one to get to by the looks of things. So it wasn't a bad thing that they weren't going to reactivate it anytime soon. Now she just needed to figure out exactly what was wrong with it before she did anything about it.

"Come on, milady," Malakai called out. "Your chariot awaits."

She glanced down and realized that the sludge wasn't up to the bow of the skiff anymore. The filtration system was already clearing a direct line around the pillar.

"Wow," she said. "That works really fast."

Lynx raised an eyebrow. "That's nothing. You don't even understand. The bare minimum should have kept this pretty much at bay. The fact that it got infected is what worked against us. Otherwise, this lake would have been fine."

Quinn ran that over in her mind. Something didn't feel right about the whole scenario. "Do you think it was possible for someone to sabotage it directly?"

"No. Not this. Who could it have been? If anybody who isn't authorized down here comes down here, we get an alarm. Nobody can get here without prior permission. Even Eric couldn't have come down here before you allowed him access."

"Oh," she said and she realized her head was starting to pound. "Okay then, Malakai, let's just make our way back."

There was so much that Quinn still needed to do and needed to think about. But first, she required some sleep. Besides, she still had two days before they could even activate the next filter.

And she planned to spend all of that getting stronger.

~~

I am so so excited for her to start getting stronger! Weeeeeeee SO MUCH TO DO!

Hope you enjoyed it!

Much love

KT