LSRO: Chapter 102 - Watchful Eye (Patreon)

Okay going to apologize in advance for the fact that this ends on a Cliffy... 

Was sincerely not my original intention buuuuuuut my stories sort of have a life and opinion of their very own

Hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 102

Watchful Eye

Quinn couldn't shake the image of Varyn and the other Esposians' deaths from her mind.

The disintegration of each of them started with their vocal cords, as if the force behind it didn't want them to speak, to give anything else away. Whatever executed them knew they'd been on the verge of uncovering information they apparently weren't supposed to have. That thought alone chilled her to the bone.

She felt guilty because part of her was relieved the executioner hadn't been able to do the same to her party. Logically, this meant that whatever was responsible could only influence those it already had control over. Those it had already had contact with.

The group remained silent as they moved through the forest, now painfully aware they weren't welcome for reasons other than they'd originally expected. Geneva, in particular, was fraught. Quinn could tell by the way she wrung her hands and her eyes darted from side to side as she clung to Malakai's shadow. Her wings moved in an almost staccato rhythm, as if she was expending more energy than usual to stay afloat. Even her countenance, usually vibrant in gold, was paler than Quinn was used to.

Quinn kept a watchful eye on the Fae Firionas and Malakai as Aradie shot off ahead to scout their way forward. She could still feel the powerful unease that permeated the air around them. There was a quietly malicious undercurrent to everything. It was more amplified than when they first arrived, more noticeable. Before, it tried to hide, as if camouflaging itself, meant they wouldn't notice anything. And, to be honest, a week or so ago, Quinn probably wouldn't have noticed.

Sending Varyn to make sure Quinn and the others weren't there for whatever book they were talking about. That had been a mistake. It gave Quinn pause, because she had lists of all the missing books. And any missing book that the system had given them information on would have been visible on the map if it was here. That meant it had to be a book that either didn't belong to the Library, or else, that did, and the Library had lost recollection of.

The latter could only be one of the missing ones from the Restricted Vault.

Given the ominous energy leaking all around her, it seemed more and more likely as time went by.

As the group moved slowly and deliberately through the forest, Geneva eventually fluttered closer to Quinn. "I'm so sorry, Librarian," she said, her usual vibrancy subdued.

"It really wasn't your fault, Geneva. None of this is your fault," Quinn said, speaking as softly as possible.

"But if I reacted faster, instead of freezing in place from shock at their actions, I could have frozen them in place so much sooner and maybe prevented..."

"No, Geneva, this wasn't you. And hindsight is always 20-20. You had nothing to do with what happened to them." Quinn used her best quiet soothing voice, but it didn't appear to work.

"But maybe I could have stopped them from attacking you. I'm just... I wasn't raised to fight, Librarian," Geneva said, looking down.

"You know," Quinn said, "neither was I. How about we look forward, move past what just happened, don't assign anybody blame. But we also don't forget the individuals and we're going to figure out why it happened."

Geneva held her gaze for a few seconds and nodded ever so slightly, a small smile playing at her lips. "Thank you, Librarian. I forgot myself for a moment there. Let's get this solved."

They continued on in the eerily silent forest. Apart from the subtle pulse that echoed through the ground like a heartbeat, there was no movement, and no sound.

"I've got a feeling," Quinn said, as they came upon a sturdy tree. She paused in front of it. "that we can't go back to the Library yet."

"What do you mean?" Malakai asked, stopping and speaking low enough that his voice almost got carried away by the wind.

"This." She placed her hand against the tree trunk and spoke. "Library, I need you."

Nothing happened. There was no pulse, no recognition of her magic, no sign that the door could fit in this tree.

Nothing.

"See," she said.

"Does that mean we're trapped here?" Geneva asked, her voice higher pitched than usual.

"Well, I mean, you've got wings, so trapped is kind of relative," Quinn replied.

Malakai frowned. "I did not foresee this. I don't want to enable my grandfather's teleport token here, just in case, because if it does take us back then we'll be gone and we still have other things to accomplish here first. I'm doubting if we do manage to leave that we'll be let back in. But I'm almost thinking my grandfather's teleport will also not work."

Quinn nodded, trying to run through everything logically in her head. She didn't like the way fear crept up her spine. It always clouded her judgment. They couldn't afford that right now.

"So I guess the only way is forward," she said, tamping down on the sensation and wrapping her logic and senses around her like a security blanket.

Aradie hooted. "I know, I know," Quinn said, as the bird dived low and then up into the canopy again, scouting from the air. She intermittently sent Quinn back images, ones that showed no life, and yet even those exuded a sense of being watched constantly, as if something was observing them all.

Quinn, as they moved, extended her senses, honing in on the center of the foreboding sensation that pulsed like a heartbeat throughout the island. It emanated from somewhere past the area they'd first arrived in.

"We need to keep moving," she said, glancing around. The silence was almost scary in its prevalence.

Aradie, she thought at her bird, be careful.

Even as she scanned the area with her abilities, Quinn felt multiple presences extending out, clumping together. But then, if they were singular to start with, they blended into each other and away from their group as they moved. Those same distinctive presences moved both toward the power center, and away from it. There was no rhyme or reason to the way they maneuvered.

It was bizarre.

Quinn couldn't tell whether these were beings amalgamating and separating themselves, or if this was a false power signature or something that was intended to lure them somewhere, perhaps into a trap. The farther they went, the less Quinn liked the entire setup. The constant pulses of foreboding didn't help.

Before synchronization, she wouldn't have had a hope in hell of sensing any of these presences, let alone tracking them. But her mind was able to pinpoint them now, all of the different types of magical signatures, even insofar as to see them separating and then converging on each other again.

They didn't appear to be Esposian Firionas. They were some sort of being she hadn't yet encountered. She had no doubt that if she'd had more time to spend acclimating herself to her new abilities, she probably would've been able to recognize them. As it was, all she could do was steer her group through these beings and hope they weren't about to get ambushed.

When she accessed the well of power inside her, viewing it, seeing it, really looking at it, as they scoured the forest, she could see the depth of access she had to something she didn't think she should yet. There was so much magic within her now... such potential, she was like a powder keg.

Making sure they weren't stepping into visible or obvious traps was easy. The magical energy signatures were almost like a second sight to her when she concentrated. If, no, she corrected herself, not if -- when they got out of this and back to the Library, she wasn't letting herself be pulled along by others anymore. Quinn was going to take the time for herself before she got someone else killed, because Quinn was under no illusion that Varyn and those other four nameless Esposians would still be alive if she knew even half of what the hell she was doing.

She had the power, she had the abilities. Hell, now she knew she even had the heritage. There should be nothing stopping her from getting powerful enough to protect not only the knowledge in the Library, but those people who were attached to it, those people who needed protecting. This floundering around because she had so much to get done was no longer acceptable. Once they solved this, once they got the immediate danger out of the way, once Tenejo was dealt with, once that trap was taken care of, she was taking time for her own development and nobody was stopping her.

She suppressed a sigh as she realized it was probably still a couple of weeks off if she was being completely optimistic. Right now, they still had things to do here.

Somehow, on the way back, the forest seemed much bigger, so much larger. It took them so much longer.

The underbrush was silent. There wasn't even a cricket-like chirp to fill the air. Nothing, not even the leaves on the trees seemed to rustle in the breeze. It was only their soft footsteps that gave any notification at all that sound wasn't immediately swallowed in this place.

Quinn gulped down a very difficult breath. Goosebumps ran up her spine. The pulse was closer. It resonated through her legs, almost shaking her bones as it went up through her body. She didn't like the sensation. She could tell the others were uneasy. Except Geneva. Flying definitely appeared to have its benefits. Except being on the ground allowed Quinn to, somewhat at least, tap into the power she could feel to trace it.

She frowned. "There are multiple beings around here."

"Yeah," Malakai said. "They're watching us, every move, tracking us."

"I knew this was a trap," Quinn said, resisting the urge to say I told you so.

Malakai shrugged.

"What you gonna do? Seriously? Are you gonna super bow people out of the way?" Quinn asked incredulously.

He shrugged. "Maybe not, but we are about to see this book. Tell me, Quinn, aren't you curious?"

He was right. He had her there. She was almost completely certain that this was one of the books they were missing from the restricted vault. Although if it started out this ominous, she wasn't sure why it existed to begin with.

From the menacing aura emanating from wherever it was hidden, and given the way that Varyn and the others reacted, it was very obviously being guarded by whoever it was that was watching them, following them, and basically herding them towards certain doom.

The group finally came upon the village they'd originally arrived in. Now, it was darker all around them. The sense of unease in the area was, well, much worse. And the air around them felt like it'd been sucked out of the vicinity, not to mention the light was fading.

Quinn didn't really relish the idea of being stuck here at night, but right now it was looking unavoidable.

Upon closer inspection, as they passed through it, Quinn realized that the doors up above them were ringed in a strange, almost matte black substance that reminded her remarkably of the chaos sludge they'd encountered in the filtration chamber. She frowned, "Do you see that?" She pointed up above them.

Malakai nodded, his own frown deepening. She could tell just by watching him that he was unsettled.

Great, it wasn't just all in her head then. Quinn decided to strengthen her personal shielding, wrapping it around her, sealing it tight. She felt a sensation of ick trying to crawl up her spine from the amount of chaos that was now pulsing along with the rest of the power throughout the entire island. It was getting worse by the moment.

And, unlike when they'd first arrived, it no longer seemed to be trying to hide.

"Geneva, can you tell me if those doors are ringed in chaos sludge?" Quinn could speculate, but she wanted confirmation.

Geneva nodded.

"Were they before?"

"No, Librarian," Geneva said, her eyes darting around once again. The forest had grown even darker.

"Does the sun set abnormally early here?" Quinn asked.

Geneva shook her head, "It shouldn't. Dimensional Gate 24 isn't much different than Dimensional Gate 25 in that respect. This is an unnatural sunset."

"Fantastic," Quinn muttered, "That's just what I wanted to hear."

Geneva raised an eyebrow.

Malakai shook his head, "Don't ask."

Past the village now and the sensation all around her were thicker, cloying. She felt like she was marching toward an inevitable gloom.

Quinn found herself questioning whether she should have had Malakai try to teleport them out earlier anyway. Thing was, it was obvious that the Esposian Firionas were under an attack of some kind, under coercion, and that would make her a horrible person to leave any of their species was still able to function behind with something that was trying to control them. Because she had no shadow of a doubt with that. They were being coerced.

Her group approached a clustered group of trees, and Quinn paused outside of the circle. Part of her resisted the urge to check any further. That part wanted to escape. Quinn had never wanted to exercise her common sense this much in her life.

"It's in there, you know," Quinn said, gesturing beyond the trees. "Do we want to step through?"

"Do you want Aradie to have a look first?" Malakai asked.

Quinn shook her head, "No, we should go in ourselves. Safety in numbers, right?"

The three of them stepped through into a small clearing circled by tall willowy trees. In the middle sat a dark, twisted tree glowing in a malevolent red.

Its bark was blackened and withered, and blood seeped out from between the cracks between each piece. The smell was pungent, rotting wood, flora, and fauna. Quinn turned her head to the side and gagged before she could get her senses under control.

A film of deep red surrounded the base of the tree, similar to the miasma cloud present in the filtration chamber. Except this was more than just a mist, it writhed and churned as if it had a mind of its own.

Quinn gulped, and regretted it instantly. Aradie clung to her shoulder, and even Malakai had paled.

She could feel the presences she'd tracked on their way here, all converging on this spot and she knew, without a shadow of a doubt that they shouldn't have come here.

The tree groaned. Not as in the wind blew through its branches and made it creak like any old tree. No, this was a humanoid groan.

Then its branches moved, shaking themselves as if trying to be rid of dirt or dust mites, or some other pest.

And then two eyes and a gaping, serrated tooth mouth opened up in a wide grin.

When it spoke, the sound resembled the grating of nails across a chalkboard. "We've been waiting for you, Librarian. Won't you stay a while?”

~~

You see... I didn't mean to end it like this. It was going to go very differently. I also didn't originally foresee that they'd spend so many chapters on this outing. 

But here you have it. And I'm loving writing this.

I truly hope you're at least enjoying reading it.

Much love

KT