LSRO: Chapter 346 - Plotting Nefariously

Guess what?!

I finally, FINALLY, found Dro's full name. It's Dronar - Weeeee. You should all clap. I was very proud of this. I'll be adjusting a lot of the references to her when I edit back to the full name. Hopefully that will provide less confusion.

Anyhu - we're getting all reved up here. I'm excited for the story! Weeeee

Hope you enjoy

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Chapter 9

Plotting Nefariously

Quinn pulled out of the state of disbelief first. She chalked it up to the fact that she’d already been shown the impossible as far as she was concerned, and frankly it just got more fantastical with each day. So, what big difference did a clash with an entity who wanted to unmake the universe or elements of it, make? “Then at least we know what we need to do in order to lure him in, right?”

Drevicia turned its focus directly on Quinn, a small smile tugging at its lips. “That’s a very good point.”

“Will someone enlighten me? I might be able to pull it out of your minds if I try, but I’d rather not. It’s rude.” Milaro crossed his arms. He looked absolutely exhausted. Quinn couldn’t blame him. He looked even worse than she felt.

“We can use the Library, myself, as bait.” Drevicia answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Dronar dropped back down onto the sofa surface with a groan that sounded like she meant to ask: why do I even bother?

Which is when Lynx piped up. “You realize. It doesn’t entirely make sense, right?”

“What do you mean?” Quinn asked. She was open to the possibility of it being a bad idea, but she wanted to know why.

“Not the idea of bait. That could work. But he came up with this brilliant plan all by himself.” Lynx paused, looking around. “When, from everything I’ve gleaned from both the Library’s memories and my own... hasn’t he always already thought he was the best?”

“Now that you mention it...” Drukala said thoughtfully.

“Exactly!” Lynx jumped on it. “So, who’s been able to convince him he wasn’t the best, and thus, needed to be?”

Heavy silence settled over the room as everyone contemplated his statement. Quinn saw his point. Dravishk appeared to have such a high opinion of himself that she couldn’t exactly picture anyone being able to tell him what to do? Surely that came hand in hand with the ability to recognize manipulation, though.

“If he put this in place while we created the Library,” Drivok said slowly, “Then if he’s under any sort of influence, or even, if he’s in cahoots with someone, then they can only be an ancient race, or person.”

Hal frowned and cleared his throat. He’d been very quiet until now. “That pretty much inserts my family, the sedimentites, the unisceros, and a few scattered humanoid tribes that have since evolved into other species.” He gave Milaro a pointed look. “I’d give credit for being such a selfish individual to any of my siblings, but I don’t believe any of them have the brains for it.”

Quinn surprised herself by chuckling.

Hal’s gaze rested on her, his eyes twinkling. “If the last encounter hadn’t convinced me of the sheer foolishness of my siblings... nothing would.”

“They forget how much power you have, old friend. You should use it more often,” Milaro sounded contemplative. He went to speak and hesitated.

Hal moved over and nudged him. “Out with it. If you know something or think you know something, now’s the time to, well... share it?”

Milaro nodded slowly, obviously running over the thoughts in his head. “Couldn’t you just interrogate Hulishar to see who put her up to that fiasco of a contrived war?”

Almost as one, everyone’s heads swiveled to watch Hal’s reaction. 

He frowned and tapped his chin with one finger. “It’s not like I haven’t tried to get that out of her... She’s being rather stubborn about this all.”

“You’re being too kind then,” Lynx spoke up. “Sibling or not, sometimes it’s the preservation of the universe that has to triumph.”

Drevicia nodded. “I know you’ve always loved your siblings, felt sorry for them for the way your entire war-waging species is set up. That they refuse to break the ties they have. There’s very little they wouldn’t do to try and take what’s yours by right, and what, frankly, they don’t have the strength, even in numbers, to do. This archaic attitude that they need to follow the road set for them instead of branching out for themselves was always going to come back and make trouble for them. Frankly, you might have to bash some sense into their skulls.”

“Violence as the answer?” Hal raised an eyebrow.

Drivok stepped in with a shrug. “Maybe not the answer, but sometimes it helps.”

Hal laughed, but it felt sour. Then he sighed. “I know you’re all right. It’s just they didn’t bring this on themselves.”

“I beg to differ,” Drukala cut in. “They did. At least, Hulishar did. She deliberately distracted you so others could come in and wipe out the one true link we even thought we had. We’re just lucky that Kajaro was petty.”

Quinn watched them argue. It almost felt like an out - of - body experience. She knew there was something she’d forgotten. Aradie moved to her shoulder and hooted into her ear. Quinn frowned. Her owl had a good point. They were all looking at it from the wrong angle. She probably cut someone off when she spoke, but she was too in her own head to notice who. “Does anyone — any single species — stand to gain anything from Chaos reemerging?”

This time the silence that swept over the room was filled with curiosity.

Milaro frowned, the dragons cocked their heads to the same left side, which made them sort of look like puppies, and Hal laughed.

“Cut right to the heart of it then, I suppose.” His fiery eyes glittered.

“Well,” Quinn continued. “I just don’t understand why, when knowing all of this, and seemingly ignoring every single logical argument that would work on any intelligent sentient being... that anyone could think putting pure chaos back out into the universe was a good idea.”

“Well,” Drivok began. “There’s...”

But Dronar cut him off, speaking from where she lay on the morphed sofa. “He’s always thought like this. Even when Drev convinced him to help put the Library together. He didn’t think it would last. All he did was gift the ability to create the pocket dimension and leave the molding of it to Drev. I don’t believe he ever thought it would work. He assumed it would backfire and take the majority of her ability with it, leaving him to be the most powerful of us siblings.”

“Only it backfired. We know this.” Hal tapped his foot impatiently. “So...”

“If you’d let me finish!” Dronar’s breathing increased; she practically panted as she struggled to sit up again and glare at the satyr king. “If anything interfered with him, it has to have been before that. Almost from when we were created. Right from the beginning, he was always enamoured with chaotic magic.”

Drevicia sighed. “He was, but I don’t think he would have...”

“You know he did though,” Drivok interrupted her. “We have proof that he tried to sabotage you. Even if Dronar was under his influence. You can’t make excuses for someone who’s been pretty consistent in his need to hurt you over millions of years. At some point,” his voice softened. “At some point, you have to realize that maybe he’s just a sibling not worthy of the benefit of the doubt you keep giving him.”

Drevicia held his gaze for several seconds before looking away. “I know.”

Quinn's heart hurt for the Library. All it wanted was knowledge, and to share all of it with the universe. To help others, to find ways to reach as many magical worlds as it could. And somewhere in there, Quinn knew that Drevicia had always wanted to believe in the best. Even after being hurt. Even after realizing just how much damage had been done by a brother who was supposed to care. “At least we know who’s behind this. Even if there is another party, we know for a fact that my uncle has been an integral part of this chaos machine. No one can argue that.” 

Agreement rustled through the room. Quinn’s head pounded again, the relief from Malakai’s massage already fading. 

“I don’t think he knows that the backdoor he created tore a part of your psyche,” Dronar suddenly said into the awkward silence.

“That doesn’t make it better,” Drevicia practically snarled. Then corrected itself. “Sorry. Bit of a sore point right now.”

“I know. But what I’m trying to get across is... he still thinks there’s a way to gain access to the wards so he can bring in and just brute force control of the Library. Could we use that?”

Quinn cocked her head to one side, watching the ridiculously ancient beings all around her.

“Of course we can,” Hal said slowly, his thoughtful face in place once again. “That would be much better bait. But I’m assuming you’d want to be the one used, and I’m unsure if we can trust you.”

“Fair... I could just message him. It’s not like we were joined at the hip. I’m not always in his presence.” Dronar sounded defensive, and then barely audible when she spoke next. “I don’t want to go anywhere physically near him again. This whole memory experience has been excruciating. I remember what he tried to supplant my memories with. I can still feel what he tried to do, and I don’t think I’m strong enough yet.”

Drukala walked over and sat on the edge of Dro’s bed. “It’s okay. We might keep an eye on you for a while to make sure he didn’t sleeper agent you, but I think that’s for your protection too.”

Dronar nodded and leaned on her sister’s shoulder ever so briefly.

“Well, this is a great family reunion. Now, most of you are here.” Milaro clapped his hands, drawing everyone’s attention. “Now we just need a to-do list!”

Quinn groaned. She was so sick and tired of lists. 

Lynx stepped forward, though, and saved the day. “No, I believe we need to see what the status of the Library is after the attacks we just had.”

She noticed Dronar go bright red with embarrassment for a second. Quinn smiled and pulled up her HUD to go through the reports, even though she could also access the state of the Library through her senses now.

She frowned. “Seems the damage is minimal. Betty and the rest are taking stock of the entire situation. The stasis areas need time to regenerate unless we can pull some excess power from the filtration chamber?” She looked up at the Library to get feedback on the idea.

Drevicia slowly shook its head. “No. It’s not fully operational yet, which reminds me. You need to activate Ashiron.”

Quinn nodded, wondering how she’d forgotten something that important. It had been a bit of a whirlwind since she’d been sucked away by the newly whole Library. “Are the golems finished repairing it?”

Lynx nodded, his eyes and runes flickering rapidly. “All repairs were completed about two hours ago. We haven’t missed much time on that.”

“Once it’s activated,” The Library added, “It’ll have access to its full power and be able to grow and morph as is needed to accommodate more power and larger output if necessary.”

Quinn nodded. She was, after all, the one with the power to activate the pillars. 

Ashiron Ashiron X982 faulty - rectified

Ashiron Pillar capability re-established
Filtration Capacity: 100%
Initialize Reboot of Ashiron Pillar
Yes or No?

Quinn grinned and hit Yes.

A grinding rumble echoed throughout the Library.

Synchronization with Main Library Core Reestablishing.
Pillar Activation in 36 Hours

“There we go!” Quinn felt triumphant but only for a second. She frowned, something she knew she’d forgotten making the back of her mind itch. And she finally remembered something from months ago. She turned to Drevicia. “Hey, did you ever manage to unlock those classified research files?”

The Library blinked at her. “No, I’d forgotten all about them. But I’ll look into them...”

“Classified research files?” Milaro asked.

Quinn shrugged. “Just something the system wouldn’t let me access a while ago. With everything else, it slipped my mind.”

Milaro frowned and shook his head.

“We do have a silver lining though.” Lynx piped up.

“Which is?” Hal prompted.

“He has no idea the Library was operating with a crippled psyche. That it wasn’t even at full capacity while he’s been plotting nefariously.” Lynx sounded all too smug, and Quinn couldn’t blame him.

Drevicia laughed. “At least that’s something then. If he doesn’t know precisely what he did, just that he did something, we might even be able to have a bit of fun with that.”

Fun sounded like something Quinn had been sorely lacking. She only hoped it was true.

~~

You leave me and my threads alone. I swear it'll be a nice jumper in the end.

Much love

KT