Honoria didn’t meet them at the door. Serenity hadn’t expected her to, with the attack they’d just witnessed, but what that really meant was that Serenity didn’t know what to expect.
The Great Library was huge, with four different obvious balconies, each of which was over a standard story in height. Even from the entrance, Serenity could tell that the balconies were absolutely full of books; the only open space was the center of the building, which was clear from the entrance to the domed roof. The lowest level was sparsely furnished with reading and work areas; quite a bit of what furniture there was was damaged and even more was mismatched.
The bookshelves and books that Serenity could make out, on both the first floor and the one balcony he could clearly see, were in fine shape. There were clearly some sort of protections on books and the Library’s structure, but whatever they were, the Library must not extend them to the first-floor furniture.
That wasn’t really all that surprising. It was far easier to protect things that were set up together than anything in a space; if a Library were to protect one thing other than itself, books seemed like a logical first choice.
Serenity looked around and eventually found Honoria floating near the inner surface of the dome. That portion of the dome did seem a little discolored, but the odd thing was that she was floating while standing on a pair of books rather than any more normal flying equipment. Did the Library really have flying books?
Apparently.
Honoria hadn’t noticed them yet. Serenity decided to wait for her to finish whatever she was doing before getting her attention, so he headed over to one of the tables. They could rest for a few minutes; Serenity didn’t need the rest, but it was good to be in a safe place.
All of Legion’s bodies had arrived before Honoria finished what she was doing, started to descend, and noticed the quiet crowd waiting on the ground floor. There wasn’t even enough seating for Legion, so many of Legion’s bodies were sprawled on the floor; a good number of them seemed to be asleep.
Serenity wished he could stay awake continuously by letting some of his forms sleep while others were active, but it didn’t work that way for him. He’d tried more than once, including after he saw Legion do it. It helped, but Serenity still got tired. It wasn’t physical, really; it was more mental. He needed some downtime to process or something. It wasn’t entirely fair that Legion didn’t, but nothing was really entirely fair in the real world.
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The patch would hold; Honoria still needed to patch the second spot, but it wasn’t nearly as bad and she needed a moment to destress before she started on it. She’d long since learned that not taking breaks simply meant more mistakes she’d have to fix later.
Chocolate or tea? She was entirely out of chocolate tea, which was probably a good thing, but she still had both separately. She was really a little tired of them both; if she had the option, what she really wanted was some good roast duck.
She hadn’t had roast duck since the Tutorial ended. With most of the other Librarians missing and the few she could find too terrified to travel in and out of the Library, Honoria had to depend on what she had and what the few people who were willing to help could bring her; that meant that luxuries like fresh meat were off the menu.
She really didn’t want to do another salted pork stew, but that was probably her best option for dinner; it wouldn’t be ready nearly fast enough to eat before the next repair, though. She was going to have to break into her chocolate stash and -
Why were there dozens of people in the library?
No, not dozens. Hundreds. Why were there hundreds of people in the library? How did she not notice when they entered?
For that matter, how were they being so quiet? Hundreds of people always meant at least a dozen conversations unless they were all asleep, and she’d have heard that. She didn’t hear it now, either. The only conversation she heard was a nice, library-appropriate quiet discussion at a table near the entrance.
Honoria took a closer look at the table. That was definitely Blaze; two people over was Kerr. At least, Honoria thought it was Kerr; they hadn’t interacted much. That meant that the purple-haired man with silver horns had to be Serenity, even though she didn’t remember the horns.
The draykin, the sterath, and the two other human women were unknown to Honoria. One of them had to be Rissa; Serenity mentioned her more often than Honoria thought he realized. The other … well, she’d read the messages. Was it possible that all of these people were Legion? The name had implications but Serenity had never explained any of them.
If so, they might actually be able to turn this terrible situation around. Honoria was still going to give him hell about it, though; you were supposed to warn your host!
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Honoria fought to keep a smile off her face as she glared at Serenity. He’d noticed her before she noticed him, but didn’t immediately speak up. Good enough for now.
Honoria carefully infused her voice with a stern, annoyed tone that matched the expression on her face. “Serenity? I assume this is your fault.”
It was absolutely hilarious to watch him scramble for an answer, but she couldn't let that show. Honoria tilted her head down towards him; that usually worked well. “Care to explain yourself?”
“Ah, I told you I was on my way?” Serenity looked like he’d expected praise rather than a scolding. Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong about that; she wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. He stumbled through a set of introductions that Honoria only paid halfhearted attention to; she’d caught the important things about the people she didn’t know.
The fact that the draykin was a dungeon specialist didn’t matter, but the fact that he was native to Asihanya might. The connection mage was interesting but nothing Honoria had any thoughts about using yet; maybe once she’d had time to think about it. That was why Serenity needed to tell her these things in advance!
The fact that one of the women was Serenity’s fiancee was important, as was the fact that they’d left their daughter in the hands of Order’s Guild. Honoria knew of them but had never worked with or against them; they were supposed to be dangerous but very specialized. She frowned and interrupted. “Are you certain that is a good idea? I know that you had some issues with Margrethe.”
Serenity’s expression shifted. It was complicated now; a mixture of confidence, pride, and chagrin, in Honoria read it correctly. She didn’t understand the combination. “I did, but they’re resolved now. Order’s guild is … they’ll keep Jenna safe and do the best for her that they can until we return. I don’t like leaving her behind, but taking her into an active war zone seemed worse.”
“I almost stayed with her,” Serenity’s fiancee stated quietly. “I hate having to choose. We almost sent her home to my parents, or Serenity’s, but they’re not in a good place to take care of her either. Order’s Guild is. When your best options for a babysitter are a Guild of assassins or a dungeon…” Rissa shook her read. “At least I know she’ll be safe.”
“Order’s Guild isn’t all assassins,” Serenity objected. Honoria wasn’t sure what his problem was; that was certainly not too far outside their reputation. Maybe they weren’t all assassins, but there were definitely assassins in Order’s Guild, sanctioned assassins. Margrethe was one of them.
Not that this discussion was helpful. Honoria needed to get it back on track. She needed to remember that she was supposed to be stern right now. “Please finish your introduction and explanation.”
Serenity paused, glanced up at Honoria, then looked over at the last woman sitting at the table with them. “This is Legion. She’s the last person here. The other people … I mean, what looks like other people …”
The woman sighed and softly smacked her forehead with her hand. “You can stop there.” She looked up at Honoria. “I should just introduce myself anyway. I am Legion. I am one, even if I am in many places at once. I am very varied, but I work well alone. I’m not even close to as powerful as Serenity, but I should be able to cover a lot of weaknesses where you don’t have enough people to do things that need to be done. We have very different strengths; mine is flexibility.”
Honoria nodded. She had a dozen different places she wanted to put Legion immediately, and it seemed like that would be possible. It was a huge load off her mind, but it still left one problem. She turned to Serenity and arched an eyebrow. “This all sounds good, but you still haven’t answered the most important question. Where are all of you going to sleep?”
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Serenity blinked at Honoria. She was right; sleeping arrangements had been a huge issue on the way to Asihanya, but he hadn’t worried about how they’d handle it when they got here. He’d been too concerned about the trip itself. The same solution should still work, though. If anything, it might be easier; there was plenty of building material nearby. “Legion can build shelters; I also have a tent that will handle a group of us and we can sleep in shifts. It shouldn’t take that many shelters to make it work.”
Serenity knew there were weaknesses in the plan, but it was the best he could come up with on the spot. Realistically, it was probably as good as anything he could have planned in advance; he simply didn’t have enough information to make concrete plans.
The most obvious weakness was, of course, the one that Honoria came up with immediately. “They’ll have to be quite a ways from here. If they’re close, they’ll become targets.”
Serenity nodded. “We’ll want to guard them, too.” As much as he wanted to assume that the city’s population would leave temporary barracks alone, he didn’t believe it. Not in the middle of a war; wars made people desperate and desperate people would do stupid, counterproductive things. It might not be many people, but he didn’t want any of Legion’s bodies getting their throats slit over jerky and biscuits, or whatever food they carried.
Serenity frowned as another thought hit him. He seemed to remember that night flying really came in after the biplane was no longer a combat airplane design on Earth. That was definitely not enough of a reason to assume that it was the same here, but he could find out. “Do they attack at night?”
Honoria shook her head. “The last attack is always at least an hour before sunset and the first one isn’t until a couple hours after sunrise.”
That was interesting. It implied that wherever they were landing was within an hour’s flight of the Library. That could be quite a distance, but it should be entirely possible to figure it out if it was that close. “Then can we set up on the ground floor of the Library? It removes a lot of issues, and we should be able to fit in enough beds for almost everyone that way. We can build reinforced protection for anyone who needs to sleep during the day.”
Honoria started to say something, then stopped. A grin crossed her face. “Only Librarians can sleep in the Library. I think we can arrange something.”