LSRO: Chapter 73 - Solutions (Patreon)

Things are happening, and I'm loving it!

Sometimes a bit of teamwork goes a very long way!

~~

Chapter 73

Solutions

Hirish and Siliqua stood at the Library check-in desk, speaking with Milaro, who'd obviously returned to the Library. His long robes and hair complemented each other well as always, sweeping like the wizard robes that Quinn always imagined elves to wear.

He was really the only character who behaved like he was out of a typical fantasy world. For the most part anyway - he seemed a bit too jolly sometimes.

Quinn was extremely excited to hear what Milaro's friends had to tell her.

"Well, what is it? What do you mean you've solved it?" she asked, looking around expectantly.

"We do think that we've figured out how this infection was achieved," Hirish explained. "It was sneakily done when checking the books in. Returning them to the system, as the console does, meant that a membrane or filament as you will was able to enter the system undetected. That wouldn't have been too bad with only a few books, but over time and thousands of books, it built up and began to leak over into other sections."

"So this was deeply thought out then," Quinn said. "It sounds like it was planned for a long time."

Lynx looked like he'd eaten something rotten from the way he scrunched up his face.

Hirish nodded. "It didn't take place over just a few years. Not even solely during Lynx's hibernation. This was hundreds if not thousands of years in the making."

Milaro frowned. "That doesn't even sound possible."

"But it is." Siliqua cleared her throat. "You see, if you trace the pattern left behind by the... shall we call it an infection, it's similar to the rings on tree trunks. You can tell when this alien substance began to enter the system."

Lynx shook his head. "I don't even understand how I wasn't aware of this."

"To be fair," Quinn said, "none of us are sure what you were aware of and that's not your fault. This was a master plan of some sort."

"I know you think that makes me feel better," Lynx said, "but it really doesn't. It just means I was complacent in my duties and I failed the Library system in its entirety."

Quinn cringed. "Not really. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, things don't always go as planned."

"She has a point," Siliqua piped up.

Quinn glanced around the desk. She saw Siliqua, Hirish, Milaro, even Malakai was lounging about, leaning against the desk, looking out toward the Library as if he wasn't listening to every single word they were speaking. Eric and Geneva were in charge of check-ins right now, but nobody was at the check-in desk to return a book at that precise point in time, so they too were also listening, and doing nothing to hide that fact. Dottie was the only one not there that Quinn was surprised by.

"Okay then," Quinn said. "What exactly is our status on being able to reopen borrowing?"

"Well," Siliqua said, "we're now working on a way with Lynx and the Library to get the chaos filtration as a part of the check-in process so that that sort of filament can never leak into the system again. We still haven't completely cleansed the entire library, but we're almost there. We only have a few more subjects to do."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Quinn held up a hand to stop Siliqua from speaking. "Like, you want to scan each book as with something as they come in?"

"Yes," Siliqua said, "perhaps with a wand or a magical skill we develop. Or have the console do it as it registers the book."

"What about an ultraviolet light? Wouldn't that work?" Quinn asked, remembering Earth and some of the neat little cell phone cleansing devices they'd had around the world.

Everybody looked at her. There were like seven sets of eyes focused directly on her. She suddenly felt like maybe she'd spoken out of turn.

She rushed to explain herself. "Well, back home we used ultraviolet light devices with like a high frequency or something. I'm not a science person, but I'm sure you could magic an ultraviolet wave of light, right? I mean, I learned that book the first time. You know, that: Bright Light Starters? Wouldn't something a little bit more advanced than that have the sort of ability that we're looking for to just, you know, rip any of that chaos energy away?"

Everybody was still looking at her and by now Quinn felt extremely self-conscious.

"You know," Milaro said slowly as if he was still running over the idea in his mind, "that's an excellent idea, Quinn."

"You don't have to sound so surprised. I'm not unintelligent. I'm just not used to magic."

Milaro, at least, had the grace to blush. "I apologize if that's how it came across," he said. "I just wasn't expecting that sort of option to come from you."

"You know, Earth might not have magic, but we made our own form of magic with technology. There's a lot of stuff that you could do with around this library to make things work a lot more efficiently and in a much faster and better way." She did her best not to sound too pouty.

"Really," Lynx crossed his arms. "You think you can make the Library work better than it currently does?"

Quinn gestured vaguely at the entire library. "You know, I think I could at least make some improvements considering the amount of crap we've had to clean up since I got here. So yes, Lynx, I could. But right now is not the time. There are still more pressing things we need to accomplish before I share my many ideas."

"I like that," Lynx said. He smiled. "Maybe pulling somebody from a magicless world to ours will reap benefits in the long run."

"Maybe, but we'll never know if we don't refocus on what we were talking about." Quinn said gently.

"Ah, sorry. Carry on," Lynx said.

"Very well," Siliqua said. She seemed only mildly irritated by the interruption. "We are developing a process where books cannot be placed back into the collection without passing the scan before re-entering the system. It's just not a viable choice for us to spend three days per book cleansing them as you did for the ones you retrieved from the Dibilian homeworld. Instead, we will apply that same process. So, it is my suggestion that we develop this ultraviolet light?"

"The more I think it over, the more I think this can be done," Millaro said. "I'm sure if I combine The Sunlight Creates the Shadows with Hidden Light that Sees More, we might be able to come up with a cleansing light."

He muttered to himself for several seconds, and then his face lit up. "That's brilliant, Quinn."

She held up her hands in a stop action. "Look, I'm glad you think I'm clever, but I'm only suggesting something I've seen done back on Earth. I didn't develop that idea in any way."

"Still, it's good that you remembered it." Milaro seemed determined to compliment her.

"Thanks," she said and turned back to Hirish and Siliqua, "Anyway, are you saying that once we have this up and running, we'll be able to accept books back as they are, and we'll be fine again?"

"Technically, yes. But we need to develop a system-wide warning that will detect anything amiss with the books should anything go wrong. That way steps can be taken to rectify the situation immediately," Hirish said.

"Well, that sounds like a plan" Quinn said.

"Hold on," Lynx spoke up. "You said almost all of the infected areas have been cleansed, and we can start accepting books back, right? So which ones have been cleansed?"

"Oh," Siliqua spoke up. "Fire magic, air magic, and related and combined affinities have been cleansed. The horticulture in ground growth is rectified. The regenerative culinary arts have also been cleared, which is very important, because I believe that you've run out of some of those specific herbs and ingredients. Cook will be enthused."

Hirish took over, smoothly, with barely any transition. "However, we have to let you know that we're still working on the hand-to-hand combat section, the fire, air, and electricity masteries in combat, as well as advanced protective spells. We're not floundering, it's just that it's taken a lot of effort to get these ones done."

"Is there any reason they're taking longer to get done?" Quinn asked.

"Well, yes," Hirish said. "These are extremely complex areas, and because they are so complicated, the way the, I guess, filament or slime has managed to weave its way throughout that particular database of magic is just as complex. There are certain elements that we need to employ to remove them, and we have not quite managed that yet."

"Well, makes sense, I guess," Quinn said, still amazed how they'd managed to find all of this. Then again, this was part of their specialty. "So do we have an estimated time this is going to take us at all?"

"Well, I would think," Siliqua paused as she thought it over, "probably another two to three days, and then the Library will be fully functional. Hopefully, in that time, the Library and Lynx, and perhaps Milaro, can come up with some sort of immediate fix for when books are returned."

Quinn couldn't believe it. The library was going to be fully functional shortly. "Another couple of, wait, two to three days, right?" She turned to Lynx. "Isn't that about when our applicants are going to start arriving for the next load of interviews?"

"Yes," he said. "In fact, about two and a half days."

"Oh, this is great timing then. Are we ready for them?" She asked.

"We're about as ready as we're going to be. Readier than we were with the first bunch, because the filtration system is working."

"True." Quinn said. "About that, how can you be so sure that we got the filtration system to work properly again?"

"Haven't you been checking the levels, Quinn?" Lynx asked.

"Oh," and she looked down at her HUD. There, that beautiful blue line at the bottom was creeping up to that 10,000 mark. "So it doesn't only get refilled by book returns."

"No. Now the filtration system isn't causing us to directly lose mana our power is gradually increasing. There's like less than a thousand to go." Even though she was super excited by it, there were 998 left to go. They were sitting at 9,002 of 10,000 units.

It was really difficult for Quinn to contain her excitement. For the first time since arriving, it felt like things were actually starting to work out.

"Can't you feel it? Can't you feel that the Library is getting stronger?"

Quinn closed her eyes and let herself sense the ambiance around her, the thickness of the air, the way the wood beneath her feet had a very subtle thrum to it as if it was real and alive and breathing. Maybe it was, with all of the knowledge held within it, but then she remembered it was probably also because the massive pillars scattered throughout the Library helping distribute the mana back into the universe.

"Yeah," she said, "I think I can feel it."

Lynx simply glowed, ever so slightly, his runes twisting in his hair as if they were doing a happy dance.

"That's fantastic timing for all of us then, isn't it?" said Quinn. "Is there anything I need to do to get ready for this round of interviews?" she asked Lynx.

"Not really. Just quiz them again like you did last time. I think this batch have worked out well."

"Darn right we have." Eric said as he finished checking in a couple of the cleansed books. Geneva laughed, but she was a little flushed, so Quinn knew she'd liked the compliment.

"So we'll have Dottie, myself, Mil... oh, sorry, Malakai interviewing them?" Quinn asked.

"Well, and me," Lynx said. "I will interview this time too."

"What about me?" Milaro said. "You almost said my name. That must mean that you want me to interview them too."

"Don't you, like, have a kingdom to run?" Quinn asked.

"Yes, I like have a kingdom to run," Milaro answered, "but I'm extremely good at delegating and I'm perfectly capable of splitting my awareness, which, you would know if you had been practicing the exercises that I gave you, is an extremely useful skill."

"It really is," Quinn said. "I'm practicing it right now. Did you know that I taught myself the third level of mental barrier all by myself because you were off running your kingdom?"

"Wait. Am I supposed to feel feel bad for not being here, or proud of you for your accomplishments? What reaction am I supposed to be giving you?" Milaro asked.

"I'm still technically a young adult, so anything you do is going to be wrong." Quinn gave him a wink.

Milaro laughed, that hearty sound that echoed through the entire library. "Ah, Quinn, it's good to have you here."

"I'll agree with that. Anyway, we'll conduct the interviews, and you should make sure you don't need to be at home more than you think you do," Quinn said.

"I shall consider myself chastised. But if I don't have anything urgent to attend to, I will be here. As it is, I will be assisting Hirish and Siliqua in finishing this last stage of their plan. The more I think about it, the more I believe I can figure out a way to integrate this ultraviolet into a simple scan for returned books!" Milaro sounded positively ecstatic.

"Well, that's ideal, isn't it," Quinn said. She was scrolling through some of the information in the HUD in front of her on the console. "Oh, wow, did you guys realize? With these books that Geneva and Eric are currently returning, we now have almost all of the culinary branch ones?"

"Yes," Geneva said as she put in the last one. "I'm done with them now."

"That's 267 of 282 books!" Quinn felt like something was finally making progress. "We only need another 15 books to open the culinary branch."

"Which is great," Lynx grimaced slightly. "Only 15 books. But I do believe we're still slightly behind when it comes to the herbs and ingredients."

"We're still sitting at 192 of 287 of those. And if the horticulture section has been cleansed, which they said it is, that means Farrow and Cook can concentrate on the remaining 95 items. Although, 287 ingredients? Isn't that like nothing?" Quinn paused, confused.

Lynx chuckled. "No, that's 287 herbs and more with magical properties. Specific things that have to be in the possession of the Library before it can open that branch. Those are not the only ingredients the branch will use."

"Oh," Quinn said, feeling a little silly for having assumed that. "Anyway, doesn't that mean we can open the new branch soon?"

"It does," Lynx answered. "Once we've got the energy levels up."

As if on cue, an alarm sounded. More like one of those alarms you set to remind yourself to do things, but it still made Quinn jump about a foot in the air. "What is that?"

Filtration process functioning at 100%

New Pillar activation permissible within these parameters.

Filtration Chamber Energy Levels: Low

Suggestion: 3rd Pillar Activation

Do you wish to activate a third filtration pillar?

Yes, or No?

Quinn looked up and grinned. "Guys, I think the Library is well on its way to recovery."

And then she chose: Yes.

~~

I know that's sort of a cliffhanger? But like, it's not a bad cliffhanger... It's an anticipation one, right?!

*cough*

anyhu, here you go. Let me know what you thought

Much love

KT