LSRO: Chapter 85 - Milaro (Patreon)

Okay so... here we go. This is a lot of information - necessary info. I don't quite think it's cliffy... it has a peaceful chapter end but I hope you still come back tomorrow to learn more

I hope you enjoy this as much as I loved writing it.

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Chapter 85

Milaro

The glow from the bough of the tree suffused through the small connectors, flowing right into Quinn as if she were simply a part of the greater whole.

Well, the Library said, manifesting as a shadow as it moved out from behind the tree, taking on no more than a vague human semblance, that is entirely more compatible than I hoped for.

"You should have known she'd be, at this level," Milaro said absently, as he focused his senses on reading Quinn's reactions to the power spreading through her.

To be honest, the Library continued, I did not expect a theoretical experiment to work this well. We spoke of it before Lynx activated shutdown mode, but I didn't think it could go this far.

Milaro actually turned to the specter of the Library and raised an eyebrow. "Really? You should know, more than many of us, quite how far Seveshall magic can take things."

That is true, the Library conceded. You have been allies for longer than I care to remember. The Library paused for a second, watching as the lights fed down through Quinn's entire body. How many of you did it take to enact such a plan, shall we call it?

Milaro sighed, noting down several things into what appeared to be a journal. It was more like a notation device attached to the system, similar to the map Quinn had used on her first venture to find books.

"The whole council took part. The same council that you, Lynx, and I founded when you first couldn't find a Librarian." Milaro paused his entries for a second, still able to remember the day the Library disappeared from his immediate senses. It was a feeling that stayed with him always. "When you shut off, we were lost. Being cut off from so much power, only having a trickle left, and that trickle being heavily tainted with chaos... It didn't bode well for the magical community. You know that as well as I do."

The shadow nodded. I know it more than you can possibly imagine.

"Probably not." Milaro said, mostly distracted by the levels of power emanating from Quinn as her body began to suffuse with the Library's power. "I have a pretty good imagination."

The shadow chuckled. Truth, you do have a way with minds, Milaro.

"That I do, that's why they pay me the big acorns," he muttered, his attention mostly consumed by the readings.

Big acorns. This time the Library's shadow laughed. I forgot what a delight you can be when you try. Much like your grandfather.

"Thanks," Milaro said. He moved to the side and held a hand over Quinn's torso, muttering under his breath, words without true meaning fell from his lips like raindrops. Gold droplets of power entered the blue that suffused her entire body, dripping down like a spiderweb into different sections. "Okay, that should help." he said, stepping back to admire his handiwork.

What exactly are you doing?

"Don't you know everything?" he quipped, still calculating the train of Seveshall power he'd mixed into the synchronization.

I'm a magical Library, not a god.

"Well, you're not really just a magical Library either, are you, if we're going to nitpick." He flashed her a mischievous grin.

You know we don't speak of that...

"But maybe we should..." This time his look was a glare. Milaro knew the Library was more ancient than most things in the universe, but sometimes the grand sweeping statements got a little stale. "You realize there was no other way to get genetic material except for the samples that we had from you. We were damn lucky we had some on hand."

You weren't really supposed to use those remnants in that manner, the Library said, but I, for one, am desperately glad that you did so.

"It was touch and go there for a while. We had no idea if the concept could even become reality..." Milaro sighed fondly, melancholy mixed in his tone. "Miyago had his best idea yet."

Did your son really come up with the plan?

"He really did." Milaro heaved another sigh, this time it was filled with sadness. He remembered his son very fondly. How brave he had been, how stubborn, and how utterly brilliant he was. If only he hadn't gotten involved with that wretched woman and left him Malakai to raise on his own... Still, Malakai was a great kid. He had a lot of fire in his soul.

"We haven't exactly had a chat to speak since you got back, have we?" Milaro asked, softly.

Well, now we're doing something that we have to talk about. He couldn't tell if the Library was amused or reticent.

"Using your traits and genetic makeup to create a virtually impeccable replacement was the most out there concept I'd heard, but Miyago was adamant it would work." Milaro smiled at the memory of the arguments they'd had. When something was theoretical and the only desperate option left...  He shrugged and continued. "But he was right. Look at her."

The lights, weaves of bright blue, with pale golden threads wound through her passageways, lit up her entire set of magic pathways. More than any one person had a right to have. "She has every single affinity you have and can ever have. She has the ability to adapt to every single affinity there ever was or will be. And you know, as well as I know, once we can upgrade her neural network, she could probably just absorb the entire Library at once."

Just because she can do something doesn't mean she should, the shadow said a hint of protectiveness in the words. But I do see your point. Maybe we are being a little too cautious with her.

“No, she still thinks that her whole life has been normal. And that this all here is something fantastical." Milaro fell silent and the Library didn't interject.

He really wondered if he'd done the right thing, creating a life specifically to become a Librarian, and save magic as they all knew it. He shook his head. What was she going to do when she found out?

Do you really think we should tell her? the Library asked.

"Have you met her? Miss ‘ultraviolet light’...If we don't tell her, she'll figure it out herself. Besides, wouldn't you want to be told if it were you?" Milaro posed the question right back at the Library.

I think I really would. And if we don't tell her, she's never going to be able to come to terms with what she is and what she has to do. Have we just doomed her to a life she didn't choose?

Milaro shook his head from side to side, but he wasn't entirely certain. At the time it had been the only solution. Even now, there was still no other option... "That was never the intent. The intent was to make the Library and thereby the universe could continue. In all our desperation, I'm not sure we were thinking straight at the time."

Milaro closed his eyes and guided the golden light deeper through Quinn's magical channels. He hit different pressure points throughout her body, dissipating into thinner lines, entering her veins and suffusing her body. He guided it, weaving it to become a strength for her with the ability to tap into potent knowledge. These were all avenues she could work toward as she found out who and what she was and why she'd been created.

He had regrets, many regrets. The most of all, not immediately telling her why she was in the Library amidst all of the confusion that she was going through. Perhaps it would have been kinder to reach out with a lifeline as to why things had happened. But she seemed to be doing so well, adapting faster than he'd ever assumed she would. Then again, that could have been some of her predisposed makeup.

He frowned.

What's wrong? the Library asked, concern in their tone.

"You weren't created to be a Library. You were simply part of original creation. Correct?" Milaro asked.

You know that's true, the Library said flatly.

"I was just wondering. You got to decide that you would be who you are. Yet we created and decided that for Quinn."

Technically, that's right, the Library said. I have to thank you for what you accomplished, or none of us would be here. You what you did with the best of intentions.

"Isn't Halschius paved with those?" Milaro chuckled to himself. He knew Quinn would have appreciated the pun. She wasn't stirring to laugh with him though. Even though it was part of the whole synchronization process, he sort of missed her laugh.

"How is it going on your end?" he said.

She seems to be perfectly in control of the power coursing through her. The Library paused for a second. It's going extremely well. How did you get this so ... right?

"Told you. We created her from the council meeting blueprints that Miyago tweaked and sent her somewhere that nobody should have been able to find her. She should have been safe there. And technically, Quinn was safe. Her caretakers, not so much." Milaro still hadn't forgiven himself for allowing two of his best operatives to fall while in service.

Is that how she lost her parents?

"Parents, bodyguards...we had failsafes in place to activate different countermeasures should they be compromised or else destroyed." Milaro shrugged. "As you can see... they didn't make it."

Could you track her? Could you keep an eye on her? Was she left alone? The Library sounded quite distraught. Milaro couldn't blame it.

"She was the only chance we had. I may be connected to you through a blood bond so old there are stars younger than it. But I couldn't connect to you in the way you needed to save you. None of us could. This was the only choice and we had built-in genetic failsafes that would trigger at certain points of maturation." He turned an irritated glance on the Library shadow. "This is what you get for not making time to see me since you went back online."

You can scold me later, make sure you don't drop the energy transfer right now, and keep talking.

Milaro smiled, tweaked the energy flow through Quinn and continued monitoring it while he kept speaking. Arguing with the Library had never gotten him anywhere, things weren't about to change now. "The magic evolution in her needed to hit a saturation point where every single affinity was open to it. But it was dormant in her until that point in time. That's why no one else could find her, and that's how you found her when Lynx scanned that one last time."

We cut it so close, the Library said.

"Don't dwell on what is now mostly in the past," Milaro chided as he smoothed out an energy bump.

It's very difficult not to. I spent almost half a millennia simply hibernating, unable to do anything and watching as everything my siblings and I had built, everything that we'd poured into my creation, poured into this Library, as it melted down and almost disappeared. All in barely the blink of my eye.

"Now it's not going to disappear," Milaro said. "Or at least we're gonna do our damnedest to make sure it doesn't disappear."

Do you think she's ready?

"No," he said. "I don't think she's ready. And at least at first I don't think she's gonna thank any of us for what we did."

Don't look at me. The shadow stepped back, hands in a defensive position. I wasn't the one who came up with this hair brained scheme.

"No, but you were one of the original council who helped develop multiple fail safes should no Librarian be found. And if you recall, this was our last resort. Voila, look at your last resort." Milaro spread his hands out in front, indicating Quinn.

Why haven't you told her yet? The Library asked. You two have such a compatible relationship. She looks up to you, like a grandfather of sorts.

Milaro chuckled. "It's probably the blood bond. We had to use several magical species to even out what would be able to survive on earth. Can't send a full blooded cosmicisodracus to a world devoid of magic. How would she have sustained herself? And couldn't make a human shell... Not with the volume of magic she'd need to channel sooner than a human would be able to acclimate to her true blood. Seveshall, Fey, and a drop of Imp blood to make sure that the chaotic connection was solidified and didn't just come from the samples we had from the Library. Her genetics might be majorly yours, but... we had to fiddle with other elements so she wouldn't..."

Magically implode? the Library laughed softly. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, what is it we do now?

"Now," Milaro said, and wiggled his fingers in the way that Quinn loved so much, he chuckled at the fact and hoped that he wasn't about to irreparably ruin the relationship he'd started to build with, technically, one of his children. "Now I dive into her mind, only to the areas she's already given me access to, and hope I can help guide her synchronization with you."

There was a brief pressure on Milaro's hand as he went to close his eyes. "What?" he asked the Library, curious. It was very rare that the entity reached out for physical contact with anybody or anything.

I just... she has to know on some level. She has to be questioning some things by now, like why and how she'd been able to fight off Kajaro's mental image at all.

Milaro pondered that, which was likely a very apt observation. Quinn did have his blood, after all, and Milaro had always had a strange mental fortitude. From birth, his mental powers were lauded. As a Seveshall, he was immediately linked to the Library as a guardian. Just like every crown prince in the Seveshall line. His fascination with the Library had developed into friendship and respect, until everything went wrong.

When the council decided to figure out a long-term plan because of the lack of Librarians, this one had been so far on the back burner, such a far-reaching probability, he hadn't even really considered anything of agreeing to give his blood to the project.

He was certain she'd inherited his mental prowess. It's what made everything so easy for her. That's why her mental barriers were advancing at a rate of, well, much higher than anything he'd ever witnessed. Levels that took people, even adept people, at mental manipulation years to traverse. It was taking her mere weeks.

And so, he was worried about her, and he was sure that even on some subconscious level, she may have drawn the occasional parallel, maybe. The synchronization process was going to reveal so much to her. It would undoubtedly give her even more questions than she already had.

How would they explain to her why she'd been created? Just how easy was it to explain that because of her near identical signature to the Library, most searchers would simply assume that she was a part of the Library, because for all intents and purposes, she was a child of the Library.

Essentially a child of the cosmos.

She hadn't been a chosen one at all. Quinn had been engineered, created, specifically to save the Library.

In a way, she was a weapon.

"I don't know," Milaro finally answered, a cold lump settling in his stomach. "We both know she's caught wind of some things...I can only hope that she will understand the desperation that led to what we've done. And I really hope she has a forgiving heart."

~~

So this is a huge amount of information. Of revelation, but I felt at this point in the story, for Quinn to move further down her path, she really needed this to happen.

There are some adjustments I have to make regarding Milaro's age back in beginning chapters (I hadn't quite gathered the time scope of the universe at that stage...) but otherwise I'm fairly happy with where this is right now.

What did you think?

Much love

KT