LSRO: Chapter 104 - More than Ordinary (Patreon)

Hi wonderful people!

So first up: Yesterday's chapter has been somewhat extended and now finished (I think) on a much better note.

Secondly, this is not a cliffy!

Enjoy!

~~

Chapter 104

More than Ordinary

Quinn unmade the slivers of ice where they touched the book, still embedded halfway into the foul tree. The blizzard she'd used was of such a high caliber that it froze everything. And while she'd tried her best to direct the frigid spell, she'd still managed to encase some of the book.

The whole tree-creature itself was frozen solid, right down to the blood oozing from it. The entire trunk and all the bark. The twisted, dead tree with all of the half-devoured body parts was in stasis. There was no voice emanating from it anymore. Not a breath, not even a trickle of power.

Quinn liked ice. Knowing in detail how to create ice also allowed her to unmake it. Doing so while attempting to extract the book enough so that she could even identify it was a very arduous process. She wasn't entirely sure what Malakai was up to, but Aradie had perched on one of the outer circle trees and was keeping a watchful eye on everything.

Geneva had gone to scout out the once large village to see if she could uncover any survivors at all. That, and perhaps the remnants of the bloody puppets and the bits of body hanging out of the tree itself, might have been a little bit overwhelming for the Firionas.

"You need to be careful with that," Malakai said.

Quinn raised an eyebrow but didn't bother to turn around. "Oh no, I was planning on diving in blindly. Thank you so much for saving me," she deadpanned.

Malakai laughed, "Well, you almost sort of did."

"Touche," Quinn said.

Finally, after leveraging and freeing the book from its last sheet of ice, Quinn managed with shield-covered fingers lightly touching its magically dry pages, to inspect the book. The system brought up the identification in front of her. Quinn frowned at the results.

Machmüller's Theory of Dimensional Dissolution and Disintegration through Ritual Sacrifice

Location: Error

Borrowing Rights: Error

Quinn blinked.  "Well," she said to Malakai, sharing the information with him, "this book just sounds positively evil."

He grimaced. "Yeah, that's... why would we even have that in the restricted vault?"

Quinn shrugged. "I mean, technically it's not..."

Malakai sighed and pulled out a cleansing bag from his inventory. He held it out to her. "Here, I brought one just in case. I tend to carry them with me all the time now. We never know when we might encounter a book that needs it. Hell, we can probably put the cookbook in one too, just to be safe."

It took several more minutes to free the book completely. There were icicles stuck all around it and she had to not only break off the icicles, but break off parts of the tree that had attempted to intertwine themselves with the book. Quinn took the bag from him and inserted the book after gently removing it from its place. She sighed as she sealed the cleansing bag and popped it in her own inventory.

Geneva chose that moment to return. From the look on her face, the tears that she had rubbed away leaving dirt smudges on her cheeks, as well as the tears that streamed down her face, Quinn knew that there wasn't much good news she had to share with them.

"Did you find anyone?" Quinn asked.

Geneva nodded, but then shook her head. "I found three. Three households full of potential survivors. That's all out of about 168."

Quinn gulped. "Oh Geneva, I am so sorry."

Geneva sucked in a deep breath, nodded again. "Yes, I have to go and fetch some healers."

"I can heal," Malakai said. "Take me to them or bring them to me."

But Geneva shook her head. "It's not that sort of healing. All Firionas require more than ordinary healing. Our physiology is very specific when it comes to healing and our souls are deeply intertwined with our vascular system. So thank you for wanting to help, but I must get one of our doctors."

"You can use the Library to bring them here," Quinn said. "Give us just a moment to make sure this tree is done for."

With all of the items accounted for and the book safely stowed away, Quinn activated Blizzard again. This time, she dialed her power up, coating the tree even more, frosting it so much that it became brittle like a piece of freeze-dried fruit. Then she stopped and pulled back from it.

"Hey, Malakai, shatter the tree for me," she said.

He grinned. "As you wish."

"Well, that's that. Let's get back. Make sure to bring them through the Library. It will be a lot quicker." Quinn smiled.

Geneva's tears rained down her cheek again. She smiled at Quinn. "Thank you. I might need, I might need a little bit of time off in order to get this all sorted. I'm so sorry."

Quinn shook her head. "Don't be sorry. Take the time you need, we'll figure it out. We have a lot more assistants now. Do we have everything we need?" Quinn asked, noting that the book was in her inventory with her. She had everything she had come with. She double-checked for the cookbook. "Okay, are we missing anything else?"

Malakai shook his head. "I don't believe so."

Geneva shook her head and Aradie swooped down to sit on Quinn's shoulder. "Okay, well, let's just go back and use the tree that we arrived here with."

It was very somber in the village as they jogged toward the tree. Quinn didn't want to waste any time and she had to be certain that they could get back. She placed her palms on the tree and said, "Library, we need you."

~~

Geneva took off immediately t as soon as they'd entered the Library. Quinn could only hope that she could make it back with the healers that she needed in time. She'd given her permission to use the Library as a quasi-travelling system. It wasn't meant for that. If people used it like a bus terminal, then they would be in all sorts of trouble and congested like peak-hour traffic. However, in a case like this, an emergency, Quinn thought they should be able to utilize the Library in a function that could save lives.

In the Library Quinn, Malakai, and Aradie moved to the left-hand side of the massive check-in desk. They unpacked the two books from Quinn's inventory.

Lynx fussed over them. "This trip took a lot longer than I had expected," he said.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "That's you and me both. I thought we were just dashing in, grabbing a cookbook, and coming back. Not stopping a people-sacrificing-blood-cult-magic-dimension thing."

"Wait... tell me the whole story about this book?" Lynx asked.

Quinn sighed. "Speaking of this book, have you heard of it?"

"No," Lynx said, "but it is a Library book. It's stamped. I don't… I don't understand why it's throwing errors in the system."

"Because it's not a Library book?" Quinn asked, clinging to logic.

"No, but it is." Lynx gestured to the stamp on the spine that they could see through the window in the cleansing bag. "This is definitely a Library book. But it must exist in that glitch portion of our memory. Because while the system can read what it is, which it couldn't do if it wasn't in the system, it can't catalog it, which it should be able to do if it's part of the system."

Quinns head spun ever so slightly. That was a lot of information to take in, even if, at the same time, it didn't answer anything. "Well, it's gotta be one of the ones that's missing out of the restricted vault, right? With a title like that?"

"Yes." Lynx nodded emphatically. "I'd say that's a very yes."

"And are we completely sure that it's not on the list that we've got?"

Quinn frowned as she went through the list of restricted books. "Nope, it's not here. How long has this one been gone?"

Link shrugged. "You're asking that like I don't have a glitching memory."

The Library chimed in as well. It's stamped. It's our signature. But I have no recollection of ever having it.

There were doors constantly opening the Library. Quinn received copious notifications that doorways were being opened. She looked over the whole check-in desk area and frowned. She was about 90% sure that the desk had expanded. This made sense, because normal patrons came here to drop off their books, to check out their books, or to be fined occasionally, or try to weasel their way out of their fines, which it appeared a lot of people were starting to do.

As they stood there at the far side of the check-in counter, Quinn attempted to figure out the puzzle.

Malakai sighed. "I don't understand. It was so embedded in that damn tree, like it was trying to pull power from it."

"That's part of the restricted vault's charm, I guess," Link said, crossing his arms. "I mean, the books in there are powerful. There's a reason we needed a few of those books very specifically, because of the power they generate all by themselves. But in order to regenerate that power, they need to have been out in the world. And to have been being used, and thus replenishing their energy. The ones that just stay in the Library still generate power, but it's like a low mana frequency, sort of like ambient mana."

Quinn nodded. "And when we first opened up, those three books I had to retrieve, they were the ones that the system flagged because it recognized that it was missing books from the vault, correct?"

"Yes, you were there."

Quinn took a deep breath. "Sometimes, Lynx, you use sarcasm wrong. This wasn't the place."

He grinned. "Oh, teach me, great one. Sorry, I'll be serious. I think I'm nervous," he said.

"Have you not been nervous before?"

"Not like this." Lynx's eyes flickered briefly, as if to punctuate that he wasn't operating at optimum capacity.

"What's that doing there?" Eric asked as he meandered over from supervising three assistants who were managing the check-in desk.

"What do you mean?"

"Oy, like, why is it out in the open? That book should be hidden away, never to leave the Library. Drop it in a cement block down a deep dark hole." Eric glared at them all. "That was the whole purpose of bringing it here."

Quinn blinked at Eric. Lynx followed suit.

"So what do you mean? You know this book?" She asked.

But Eric continued, and it was obvious he wasn't joking. "Is that a cleansing bag it's in? Why, why does Machmüller's Theory of Dimensional Dissolution and Disintegration through Ritual Sacrifice need cleansing right now?"

Quinn shrugged. "Because we just discovered it and found it in the middle of a ritual sacrifice and so we wanted to cleanse it before we put it back in the Library."

"Sorry?" Eric did a double-take. "Excuse me, what?"

"What do you mean?" Quinn was puzzled.

"It's one of the five-dimensional break books, you know? For universe dimensional maintenance, you know, it's restricted for a reason."

Eric looked at their blank stares. "That de DeKarlyle's Thesis of Spatial Distortion is also one of those."

"Okay, so what? It's part of a set?" Quinn asked.

"Actually, yeah, it's part of a set of five. I don't know the other names off the top of my head and I only know de DeKarlyle's because I know you guys brought that book back. Like, what's happening? Why? These aren't books that should be taken out. That was part of the reason that my faction gave them to you. They're supposed to be kept safe in a Library." Eric was really getting worked up. His wings dripped brimstone onto the floor of the check-in area, he was so irate.

Lynx sighed. "Well, the Library was supposed to do a lot of things, but the last 500 years have proven that that's not always possible."

"Sorry," Eric said. "I realize that some really screwed up stuff has happened to the Library. I get it. I'm angry on your behalf. I know how to figure out the names of the other books so you can check them. I'm starting to think maybe the other three are gone as well."

"Yeah, all signs point to that, doesn't it?" Quinn said. She was tired now. This was a lot.

"Okay," Eric said. "I'm gonna flit away, grab that list and I'll bring it back." "

"Can't you just, like, retrieve it?" Malakai asked.

"No, this is... The glitches are obviously neglecting to list all the books. And these ones are nasty shit," Eric said matter-of-factly. "Builds dimensional warp zones through ritual blood sacrifices."

"I mean, well, we stopped the ritual blood sacrifice," Quinn said.

"Did you though? The book only needs to be part of it while a dimensional rift is forming. Not once it's fully realized. So you might have stopped this one, but that doesn't mean they didn't use the book to create others prior to this."

"Oh, great," Quinn said.

"Don't you worry Librarian. I'll go visit my uncle and get that list of books. Maybe we can still lock onto the location if we know what it's called." Eric said. "You owe me though. My uncle and I aren't on good terms."

With that, the imp vanished.

Quinn blinked at where he'd been but seconds ago and sighed. She pulled the cookbook out and scanned it in, feeling oddly anti-climactic that she now only had three books left to go.

After all, opening a culinary wing when there were dimensional destruction books floating around that shouldn't be? Well, that just put a whole new shine on things.

~~

Weeeeee SO MUCH TO DO

Don't worry, the Culinary Branch will probably come first!

It's more what they can find, right?

Much love

KT