Quinn always expected Uncle Hal to be quite a bit larger than he was when he came to visit the Library. She wasn't expecting him to be taller than a house. Imposing as he was, that smile was cheeky as ever. Eric hovered right up near Hal's face, with his hands on his hips, glaring at his uncle.

"Fine, fine," Hal intoned, his voice booming through the room. Even as he spoke, his body began to shrink, until he stood about the eight-foot mark again, just two feet taller than Malakai. "Is that better?" he asked, his voice less encompassing, yet no less deep somehow.

"That's much better," the imp said, having hovered back down to a normal level.

"Very well, I apologize." But Uncle Hal didn't sound contrite at all. "Quinn did ask how large I actually was."

"But you can still be bigger than that," Eric called him out with a smug smile. “So you didn’t do what she asked.”

"No, I can be bigger than that. But only with effort." Hal grinned. "That was my natural size"

"Whatever," Eric grumbled and his wings fluttered with irritation, staccato in their beat.

Malakai frowned. "That's quite huge," he said.

"Yes, it is rather, isn't it? Impressive, and I shall always say so myself." Hal winked at the elf.

Malakai didn't bat an eyelash. "Is that innate magic, or is it a spell?"

"Innate magic. It's a satyr thing." Hal shrugged with ease. "Depending on power levels. Depends on how large we can naturally become. But after a certain level it becomes bothersome."

"Hmm," Malakai said. "So how tall is Ikeshal actually?"

"Not as tall as me," Hal said. He looked at Quinn quizzically. "You seem a little hot. Would you like to retreat somewhere the temperature is more regulated?"

Quinn nodded, even as she looked around the charcoal dusted area. There were veins running through the walls, red, like blood, somehow illuminated through the rock.

Lava veins throughout the whole structure.

The heat seeped through her magical barriers. She wondered how Eric felt in a constantly temperature-controlled environment when he was in the Library. She'd have to try and remember to ask him that later.

"Come. Let us chat in comfort. I will have refreshments brought to help you with the heat." Hal led them from the reception chamber through a twelve-foot door and into a small hallway. It was too small for him. He had pull in on himself because of the width of the doors. His shoulders were wide. For Quinn and the others, it was easy to traverse. She and Malakai could even walk side by side.

Windows cut into the rock looked out over rocky hills, plains, and petrified trees. And she noticed people in groups performing what seemed like...

"Are they practicing fighting?" she asked, watching what seemed like formations of some sort.

"Yes, it's, uh, they're drills. Each regiment has a different time for drills. And you're looking at, I believe, regiment seventeen." Hal didn’t seem ready for that question.

"How many regiments do you have?"

"A lot," he said, the smile gone from his eyes as he glanced back at her again. "You need to cool down."

Quinn muttered under her breath. "Isn't that why I'm here?"

If Hal heard her, he ignored it.

They walked into what seemed to be a massive living room. Red couches that were surprisingly quite plush when Quinn sat on one, surrounded a coffee table. Everything outside of those couches was formed out of the same rock as the rest of the palace. She frowned.

"Not what you were expecting?" Hal asked.

"No, not that. It's just, is everything made out of igneous rock?" she asked.

"Well, yes, technically," He gestured all around them at the malleable way things had been created even in the room. Right down to the archways that made up the windows. "We simlpy mold it."

"Wait, so it wasn't a massive volcanic eruption that incidentally created everything here?" Quinn glanced around. "You just mold the lava?"

"Well, despite the lava rivers we don't have that many volcanos. The heat comes from the core of the planet. In this whole sector actually, most of our worlds are powered that way. The temperature keeps the lava workable."

"What about water?" Quinn asked.

"Well, of course we've got water, but it's usually hot." Hal paused for a second, thinking. "Yes. Think hot springs, very hot springs."

"I can imagine," Quinn said. "So you have sculptors who make all of this furniture and who sculpt the castles and the houses. Is that how it works?"

"Yes, it is." Hal offered a smile. He seemed proud. "They are sculptors, masonries, crafters. We have a very diverse architecture division in our universities. It's not for the weak of heart to take lava, make it malleable, and form it into something useful or beautiful."

Quinn pondered that for a few moments and then thought about the army division who were fighting in the courtyard. "How do you have time to spend with us or even to come and visit the Library? Didn't you say you frequently have wars to fight?" It was a concept Quinn couldn't quite get her head around.

"Well, we have wars, but really in this day and age, they're more like spats where my brothers and sisters who still disagree with decisions made millions of years ago by our forefathers, have decided to constantly bombard me with irritation." That steely portion of his personality was back.

Quinn wasn't sure she wanted to know more about that at this point in time.

"What's on your mind, Quinn?" Hal asked, narrowing his eyes. "There's something you're not asking. Something you're not telling me."

"I was wondering about Tenejo and Adrito. What are you going to do to them to find out what they know?" She avoided telling him her real problem for a few more precious moments.

Hal leaned back, studying her. "Haven't we already established that by handing them over, you've given me leeway to extract the information any way I see fit?"

"Well, yes," Quinn said, slightly reluctantly.

"That's not what you weren't telling me, Quinn. Are you going to actually tell me why your heat levels are off the charts?"

"What do you mean my levels are off the charts?" Quinn asked.

"There's something wrong. You're," he narrowed his eyes again, peering at her in a way that reminded Quinn of how Lynx frequently reconnected with the system and multitasked. "You are out of balance, Librarian. There is something wrong with your fire element."

Quinn sighed. "You mentioned fire, back when you were at the Library. It was the first time I realized that perhaps the hot flashes I got every now and again weren’t just because I'd changed worlds and my hormones were acting up. I realized that, well, maybe it was something else."

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"Well, obviously it's something else. You're mostly a cosmicisodracus. Fire is your thing. It is a species related affinity, and it's strong. Probably your strongest one." He waved the statement away nonchalantly.

Quinn felt completely and utterly out of her depth. She frowned. "So, fire is my natural affinity and I shouldn't be fighting it trying to come out?"

"Oh, you definitely should be fighting its attempts to emerge," Hal said. "After all, you don't want to burn down a Library. There's a lot of books in there."

"But those books don't burn in regular fire," Eric said, laughing.

"Have you ever felt the fire of a Cosmicisodracus?" Hal asked.

"Of course I haven't," Eric said. "They've been mostly absent since long before I was born. You know that."

"Precisely. So don't talk out of your arse since you have no idea what you're talking about," Hal said. "Their fire can burn magical texts. Trust me when I tell you it's hot. Even for me." He added the last almost as an afterthought.

"Oh," Quinn said, "was that the fire I gained access to when I had to destroy the contaminated books?" She asked suddenly. Malakai blinked at her, as did Hal and Eric.

"You already triggered the fire once?" Hal asked, his tone incredulous.

"Yeah, the system said it was level 21 or something and it said that it was way out of my power range or something like that."

Hal pinched the bridge of his nose and began to pace in the room.

"I take it that was a bad thing?" Quinn asked.

"You're extremely good at reading body language, Librarian. However did we manage without you?" His words were clipped.

"There's no need to be snarky about it," Quinn retorted, quite irritated. She picked up one of the cups of tea on the table, marveling at how fine the material was. It didn't appear to be porcelain but almost as delicate, while likely made out of an igneous rock variation or something.

"Fire of that level should have been monitored. You should have been in the core to try it out the first time. You needed to be protected." Hal sighed. "Just the act of using it set the chain reaction to alter your body on a molecular level, which you are not yet ready for because you are basically still an egg."

"I was born in an egg?" Quinn asked.

"Metaphorically speaking, you are still a baby with a lot of responsibilities thrust on you, raised in human society. This is," he took a deep breath and appeared to count to maybe five, "absolutely none of your fault. We will fix this and get you working at the optimal level."

"Okay," Quinn said, slightly mollified and yet at the same time, rather scared. She wasn't entirely sure what she expected.

Hal seemed to take pity on her, and smiled. "It's not that dangerous, or it won't be if I'm the one to teach you. We do have several reinforced chambers that can withstand the type of force that your fire will create if absolutely necessary."

"Great," Quinn said, not meaning it even for a second. What he described sounded positively terrifying. What if she couldn't withstand the force. She took a long sip of the slightly bitter tea.

Hal frowned while watching her. "I need to check a few things. May I touch your head?" Quinn leaned back slightly.

"What do you mean, touch my head?" She asked, suddenly feeling a wave of exhaustion hit her. Had she been doing too much again?

"It's easier for me to assess the level of potential damage, the level of power you're approaching, and perhaps what techniques might best suit your very specific genetic makeup."

"Oh, okay," Quinn said, and was surprised when he was quite gentle about it. He placed two fingers very lightly on her scalp, his thumb on the back of her head and his forefinger on the front. She tried hard not to think about the fact that Hal's hands were big enough to crush her skull in one fist.

Yep, that was something she didn't want to picture.

"Calm your thoughts. They are breaking out of your barriers." His tone was smooth and soft.

"No, they're not," she said, after checking briefly despite her increasing lethargy. Maybe it was the heat all around them, lulling her into a sense of relaxation. Like a permanent hot rock massage.

"Well, I am extremely perceptible to thoughts directed in my direction. Please keep them under wraps." He murmured softly.

Quinn could tell he wasn't trying to be mean, just the forthright way he spoke sometimes made it appear like that. What she wouldn't give to sleep right then. "I apologize. That wasn't really directed at you, just in general."

"I understand," he said, and for a few moments they stayed that way. Hal looking through her mind or body for whatever it was he thought he'd find, and Quinn fighting against her growing exhaustion.

"Hmm." He said several times over the course of a couple of minutes.

Quinn didn't like the sound of his hmms. They didn't inspire confidence in her. In fact, they made her quite trepidatious. She could feel a presence at the outer edges of her barriers, testing ever so slightly and a warmth that ran through her mind, that had nothing to do with the out of control fire that kept threatening to take control of her and other things around her.

It had nothing to do with the sudden overwhelming freezing sensations that shot through her body. This was welcome and friendly, but in a stern teacher sort of way.

But there was that thing at the outer edges, trying to creep in, this wave of fatigue that wouldn't leave her, and only kept growing - exponentially it seemed. It had been slow at first, but now, she could barely hold herself awake.

"Excellent," he said, as he withdrew both his hand and his probing. She frowned, feeling a strange sense of coolness suffuse her head where his fingers had rested. Granted, he was the Lord of Halschius, made out of mostly fiery stuff. It probably stood to reason that he was warmer than most.

"So what is this hmm about?" Quinn asked, suddenly finding herself breathless now. Out of breath and tired, like she'd just run a marathon.

"This hmm is specifically about the fact that you have handled this much better than I would have anticipated, given your upbringing."

"Not my heritage?" She asked.

"No, no, no. Your heritage is neither here nor there, apart from the fact that it makes you prone to use fire. You have done remarkably well, as has, I believe, Lynx in aiding you? Did Dottie not help you?"

"No." Quinn blinked rapidly, trying to keep her eyes open. “You know she has a fire affinity, right? I always thought it was weird that a wooden bench had a fire affinity."

"She's not made out of actual wood. She's made out of a type of extremely fire-resistant petrified type of wood, I guess. But she's grown, you understand that, right? The superellex futora are a grown species. Anyway, you can read about them. I am disappointed that you aren’t further along, but content that you haven't set the Library and other people on fire."

Hal opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it and frowned, studying her, his brow creasing with concern.

"Thanks?" Quinn asked.

"You're welcome." He paused, watching her intently again before continuing. "I have some exercises I wish to run through with you. They will be very similar to the way you built your mind protections, which are, by the way, quite exemplary, given how little time you've had to erect them. Kudos to Milaro. I will tell him myself when I next see him."

Quinn blinked. Hal was so commanding and so simply there. Everything he said, she wanted to listen to. And she knew that everything he said held weight unlike anyone else except Milaro.

If only her head wasn’t so heavy.

She reached for her cup of tea, suddenly positively parched. Her arms felt like lead... as if they'd been transformed into a heavy metal and then encased in concrete. Her vision swam even as she tried to make sure her breathing filtration was working.

"I think we'll begin training straight away. Now, I need you to get..." Hal stopped. "Quinn. What's wrong?"

He leaned in to catch her as she fell forward. "Send for Girilda right now. She needs a doctor."

Hal smoothed her hair back, and she swore she could see thunderclouds behind his eyes. "It's okay. You'll be fine." He said, but she didn't believe a word. There was simmering anger in every pore of his being.

"Fine..." she gulped as she lay back on the propped up pillows. "My throat... drink."

Hal glanced at the tea cup she was staring at. He lifted it up to his nose and sniffed, just once, before placing it back on the table, discomfort on his face. "Is that what you drank?"

Quinn nodded, barely able to keep track of the action considering her head felt like it was on a spin cycle.

Hal roared out something in a guttural language that Quinn couldn't understand, perhaps it was because her head was wonky, but it might also have been because her translator didn't know how to twist the words enough to make her understand.

Either way it made her shiver.

She was so very tired. All she wanted to do was close her eyes.

"Stay with me, Librarian." Hal said, his tone soothing.

She smiled. "Mhm. It's nice and warm here."

He frowned and muttered under his breath. She thought he said something like: "I should have done a complete scan."

"I'm sorry," she slurred ever so slightly. "I'm just suddenly so tired."

She noticed Malakai off to the side, his face ashen, and Eric was nowhere to be seen. Quinn tried to figure out why in her head.

"Stay awake. Come now. I have a wonderful beverage coming your way, much better than what you just drank." There was an overtone of concern to his voice.

Quinn nodded as the world swam in and out of view.

"Where the hell are they?" Hal growled this time, beckoning to Malakai. "Watch her. I need to find the doctor and make sure she brings the antidote."

Quinn decided she really needed to sleep... antidote definitely didn't sound like a good thing. Maybe they could tell her all about it when she woke up.