LSRO: Chapter 88 - Acclimation (Patreon)

Hey there! Okay so... I don't feel like this is a cliffy. It's like a yep this is happening and next time this is what'll happen. But maybe others will feel different.

I'm having a ball giving her more access to her powers. I can't wait for the next several chapters I'm going to draft - it's just so much freaking fun.

~~

Chapter 88

Acclimation

Quinn sat on the massive, mahogany-like desk that served as her place of work in her office. In front of her was a massive, ornate mirror. It was ringed in silver intricate knotwork that reminded her of celtic imagery back on Earth.

The special thing about it was that she could watch the way her mana and magic circulated through her system. The glow moved through her veins, every single one of them, and occasionally seeped out through her pores. But generally, it gave her an excellent estimation of how to meditate and allow herself to get used to the flow of magic within her. At least once she got used to that whole reverse image thing.

Apparently magic couldn't take care of that.

Since the synchronization caused a much higher level of compatibility and gave her much more power than she'd had, she needed to be, well, somewhat cautious about how she used it. The recent power acclimation was quite sensitive.

Now that she could sense absolutely everything around her to such a heightened degree, it meant that mana and magic circulation, as well as the attunement and tempering of the chaotic elements she was so attuned to, took on a much larger role within her body and her mind.

Previously she'd been able to feel the Library all around her, but now it practically ran through her veins alongside the magic and mana. Complete and wholly a part of her. There was energy to feed off everywhere, and she had a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn't need to eat those energy balls as much anymore.

Hopefully. She felt like she'd overdosed on them lately.

"Quinn, pay attention," Milaro said, cutting through her thoughts. "Your mind is wandering again."

She looked down at his feet guiltily. "It's really not. I'm trying my best to..."

"Quinn, I can tell when you're lying. It's one thing you're really going to have to learn to do well." He was still half glaring at her.

Quinn sulked and shot a very slight pout in Milaro's direction. Not that he deserved it. He had become the perfect teacher once they'd left the core room.

"Now, focus," he chided gently. "You need to master how your mana circulates so you can do it subconsciously. Make it a constant thing, always ready, always circulating, always replenishing all of your different energies. When you replenish your body, mind, mana, magic, and energy as a whole, it becomes much more difficult to best you in any type of fight. But it needs to become second nature... muscle memory."

"That sounds really complex," she said. And that was just it. She got it. She understood what he meant. It made her sort of like an air conditioning system pushing air through the ducts of a house and making sure that every room in that house had the same air pressure entering it in order to leave it at the same temperature as all of the others. "Magic is sort of like air conditioning..."

"What?" Milaro asked. "Air conditioning?"

"Yes, and I'm like, my veins are sort of like ductwork." She blinked at him like he should totally understand what she was saying.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. "You know, Quinn, if that helps you analyze, assess, and apply it properly -- I am all for you explaining it in whatever way works for you."

"That's good then." Quinn grinned before she fanned out her hands to put them on her knees so that she could enter a meditative state again. But in doing so, she somehow managed to create a gust of wind that knocked over a massive stack of books that had been waiting for her to repair. They flew all over the floor with some of the loose pages coming out of them.

She groaned and got down off the desk to pick the books up. "Oh, Narilin is going to have my head for doing this to the books."

"No, she won't. She'll be happy you decided to help her." Milaro said. "However, once you finish that, make sure to get back to what you were doing, or you're never going to control offhand incidents like this."

Quinn sighed because it definitely wasn't the worst thing that had happened so far. And when she came up from the core cavern a few hours earlier she'd managed to send Carty racing through part of the Library, as well as knocking a few chairs over on her way, just by not understanding how to control the magic that leaked out of her.

Right now, they were concentrating on her meditation, so that her magic might be maintained within her spirit instead of joyfully leaking out and latching on to anything and everything it could. It seemed that some of her inclinations with magic were mischievous.

"Your synchronization took well," Milaro said. "But we're going to have to get a handle on your ability to wield the power that you now possess."

Quinn raised an eyebrow at him as if to say no shit, Sherlock, but she limited herself to the action and didn't say the words. She leveraged herself back up onto the desk to continue the lesson.

Milaro had spent more hours in her head with her than she'd ever thought someone would. He guided her through meditative exercises, including multitasking, mind control, leveling up her mind barrier to level five, which had taken barely any time at all, and also gave her drills to help strengthen her resolve. Willpower and mental fortitude went hand in hand. It didn't matter how much potential someone had, if they had absolutely no trust in themself.

She'd never had anybody this close to her before. But then she guessed she hadn't been meant to have anybody that close. There were so many human aspects to her upbringing that it was difficult to think of herself as other than that. But in a way, she'd always known there was something different about her. She'd just assumed, in a very human way, that it was more about her being an orphan.

Everything around her felt like it was on a hair trigger, even with Milaro there to guide her. One false move, an out-of-place thought, a snappy temper, or impatience, and she could blow a hole in the space-time continuum for all she knew.

Although probably not.

Although maybe.

"Stop that train of thought," Milaro's voice drifted across to her. "Calm it down. Condense your focus and remember that everything about you can result in a weapon now if you so choose it to be. Control your reactions."

Quinn shuddered ever so slightly. She hadn't relished killing Kajaro, at least when she thought she'd killed the snake-man. But sometimes she realized she'd have to use force to retrieve what somebody else was trying to claim as theirs when it belonged to the universe as a whole.

"Yeah, I know." she said feeling a little melancholy. "Sorry, I lost my train of thought for a second there."

"It's perfectly okay. We'll get back on track." He was smiling, she didn't even have to have her eyes open to know that.

And he was right because she had at least that much control over herself. Meditation, focusing inwards, acclimating her body to the way the power felt and moved. She entered a trancelike state and only Milaro's soothing tone roused her out of it.

"I want you to try and communicate with parts of the Library at different times, mentally, without having to speak out loud," Milaro instructed. "There is so much more you can do just with a thought, and all of it so much faster than by speaking."

Quinn mulled that over and opened her eyes to watch him. He definitely had a point. "Yeah, that's really true, but, you know, I still like to speak to people."

Milaro crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at her. "And you can still speak to people, but you're going to find that with the retrieval of books and the fines, the fact that we still have to find out, expose, and stop the culprits who sabotaged the Library in the first place. Not to mention that because there are culprits who sabotaged the Library, this also means you're in danger. You're not unkillable. Technically you might get to live forever if somebody doesn't kill you. So we need to make sure that you are safe, and in order to cram as much into your training and your survival as we possibly can, you need to be able to multitask at the speed of light."

Quinn gaped at Milaro. It was probably the longest speech she'd heard him give. Not only that, there was a level of passion to his words that couldn't help bring a smile to her face.

"Thanks," she said. "I appreciate the reality check."

And she did. Even while she thanked him, she still scoured the connections she felt, getting used to them, feeling out every nook and cranny, knowing the parts of the Library that she could reach, the parts that were still a little hazy, how much distance she could cover with it. One of the best things she discovered was that she knew exactly what doors to the Library were being opened and where they were coming from. Granted she didn't understand the sectors, quadrants and whatnot yet, but that would come with time too.

Everything fed back into her mind, all of it compartmentalized in such a way that it was a little bit overwhelming, and yet, at the same time, completely and utterly eye-openingly awesome.

She took in a breath and closed her eyes. Misha, are we ready to question the prisoners yet? She sent out a simple question to her supervisory golem, simply to test the bounds of the telepathic link.

Misha didn't appear in front of her like Misha usually would have when she called out their name. This time, Quinn could practically hear the amusement over the connection.

Thank you, Librarian. I will let you know as soon as the prisoners are ready for you and the king.

Are you preparing them? Quinn asked, thinking that she might just prefer telepathy for the Library. Maybe.

Misha paused, and for a second, Quinn thought she wasn't going to get an answer.

There are barriers that the guardians can wear down so that your interrogation of the prisoners is easier. Right now, those have almost been broken through. We're almost there, Librarian.

Thank you, Quinn said. Telepathic communication was swift. The entire conversation took approximately 20 seconds. Quinn opened her eyes and smiled at Milaro. "I see why you and Malakai use the whole telepathy thing so often."

Milaro didn't even try to hide his grin. "You haven't even discovered the half of it yet."

Quinn laughed.

Milaro stared at her thoughtfully. "I have to admit, you're taking this all very well."

Quinn frowned at him, thoughts running through her head. Meanwhile, she checked on the status of the Library books that were being returned, how Malakai and Dottie, Eric and Geneva were doing training the new assistants, and checked on Cook to see if they were cooking up anything nice for lunch. She could see where Milaro was coming from, but at the same time. Since her synchronization, an odd sort of peace had overcome her, and she had to admit to liking it.

After a few more seconds of thought, she finally answered him. "Well, I'm alive. I like where I am right now. I like the options I have in front of me. I don't feel that my life before this was a bad one. There is nothing for you to apologize for. Everybody comes into the universe in some way. Some are born. I was created. I think I may not understand exactly what happened yet. Perhaps down the line I'll be more resentful, but I don't think so. This is simply my set of circumstances. And right now, I am content in being myself and learning more about myself. And being in a position where the people who created me can help me."

She grinned suddenly. "I could do a lot worse than being a magical Librarian."

Milaro turned away, and Quinn went over her words in her mind just to make sure she hadn't been unintentionally mean. With all of the information in her head, and the new experiences, she might have been nasty and not realized it. But she couldn't think of anything she said that might have upset him. She doubted he was crying. It was probably more likely that he was trying not to laugh in front of her.

That had been a pretty soppy speech.

Still, her explanation was exactly how she felt. She was happy being a Librarian, no... this Librarian. She wanted to know more about the universe -- everything.

Quinn enjoyed the connectivity and the power that came with it. Even though there was that element of danger of chaos lingering everywhere. She could feel it trying to lull her, trying to pull at her and coax her. It had this entrapping quality, but it was a signature that she could hold at bay. Once seen, it wasn't something that could hide from her. She had no intention of letting it fool her into anything.

"Thank you, Quinn," Milaro finally said. "I think perhaps it might be a good idea for us to double down on your multitasking training."

He cleared his throat and wouldn't make eye contact with her. She thought she saw what might be a tear in the corner of his eye, but she wasn't entirely certain. It could have been from laughing, but it might have been from emotions.

"Multitasking is fine," she said.

He dove into her mind with her. What began as a way to divide her mind and allow her to think faster than she had learned in that book, which seemed a lifetime ago, had moved to a new level with the synchronization. Even though it could get noisy in her head if she tried to have more than one conversation, the point was that it was technically possible to keep track of multiple conversations at once.

It would have been the coolest skill to have as a kid. She could have eavesdropped on everyone.

"You're getting off track, Quinn." Milaro spoke through her mind. "Focus."

"Fine," she said and laughed.

Perhaps the most significant change in the whole synchronization process was that Quinn no longer needed the Library pebble. She kept it because she found it soothing to sometimes just rub her thumb over it. Sort of like a fidget toy. But now, no matter what was happening, who was nearby, or how far away she was, she could sense everything about the Library. It was just there as if she could reach out and touch it.

Heavy and steadfast.

"Excellent, I think you've got the hang of that," Milaro said, "at least for now."

"What next, teach?" Quinn asked.

Milaro cringed. "Yeah, don't call me that."

"What next, grandpa?" She grinned as evilly as she could.

"Don't call me that either."

Quinn laughed. "Fine. King."

"Yeah, that's better, more respectful." He flashed her a smile. "Now you need to work on your stamina. Malakai will take you through some endurance training."

"But like... can't I just magic stuff?" She asked, wiggling her fingers.

"You know that's not all there is to it. I don't know why you ask that." He wiggled his fingers right back at her. "You're not the most physically imposing Librarian we've ever had. And you need endurance to be able to wield the almost endless power you'll eventually have."

She pouted but didn't really mean it. Milaro opened his mouth to say something else and closed it as Misha appeared in front of them.

"The Guardians request your presence, Librarian," Misha said with a brief bow. "The prisoners seem ripe for talking. Very eager, in fact."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Really? That sounds like fun."

Milaro rolled his eyes. "Here we go. Give a Librarian a bit of power..."

"And she'll get to the bottom of a conspiracy theory!" Quinn finished off, giving him a wink. "See? I'm learning."

She ignored Milaro's groan as they headed toward the containment cell.

~~

Weeeee. See? I thought that was a happy and nice note to end on. We can torture spies next week :D

Much love

KT