The pillar felt slimy.

Not in a physical way, but more of an aura generating mystical one. It coated Quinn’s senses every time she tried to reach out to it. Milaro tapped a finger lightly against her shoulder and she looked up at him.

His light hair was tied back in a pretty strict braid today, and his face held more seriousness than she’d ever seen before. Granted, there were some hefty stakes involved.

“Breathe. Remember that anything you see or hear once I guide us inside to our goal is a warping of truth and reality.” His words were even, measured, and softly spoken.

She nodded her head.

“And I’ll be here to help...” Lynx said. But whatever else he’d been about to say, a visible shock jumped from the pillar to him, practically pushing him off the edge, and it was only Geneva’s quick thinking shove back that saved him from falling into the one still chaotically sludged area of the lake.

“What was that?” Milaro asked, his eyes narrowing.

Quinn tried to pay attention, but to be honest, she was worried about what might have happened if he’d blinked himself back up. Wasn’t that paramount to teleportation too? Could they have lost Lynx? She didn’t think the Library would forgive her for that.

Lynx was analyzing the situation if his eyes were anything to go by, and they usually were. “Interference. I can’t help you internally. I’ll have to try to funnel power to you from out here. My creation of the dimensional shift means my presence within that confined space provokes dissonance.”

Milaro nodded slowly. “Makes sense. Magical dissonance is a definite possibility when you’re dealing with something this delicate.”

Quinn had no idea what magical dissonance was, but she knew what other books she was adding to her list. The list of things she needed to learn was growing by the minute. “I’m great with not knowing the intricacies, as long as you guide me, but since time is of the essence, we should move along.”

Milaro colored slightly, nodding once before he closed his eyes and a calm overcame them all.

It seeped into Quinn’s being like a warm blanket on a rainy day.

“Are we ready?” He asked, giving her a king and encouraging look as he asked the question.

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Good. Place your hands against the pillar...” He saw Quinn’s hesitation. Given that the pillar was covered in a decent amount of slime, it was understandable. “It will be fine. I’ve cleansed the area of any immediate negative effects. As long as we get this done in a timely manner, everything will be okay.”

Quinn nodded and placed her palms against the pillar.

Immediately she was sucked into what felt like a whirlpool of hatred and regret, of violence and anger, messy and desperate. It only took a second for her mind to dismiss the sensations as mental manipulation designed for force her to capitulate to the underlying desire of freedom. Not for the first time, she thanked her lucky stars Milaro had given her as much mental fortitude training as he had.

Now she could see it for what it was. There within the four massive, towering walls of the pillar was a round cage inside of which was a ball. It seethed, bounced around in its cage with tumultuous force, roiling and seething like a captured creature of the deep.

Quinn felt her whole body shudder with revulsions. The emotions reaching out to her leaked from this deeply dark sphere, through cracks of the cage in a desperate attempt to reach something, someone, and cross over.

There was so much wrong with the outputted sensations, Quinn wanted to shower for ten hours and scrub herself down with a brillo pad.

Centering herself, she followed Milaro’s lead.

They skirted the edges of the pillar, rounding out the area with a level of mental and physically conjured padding to dampen the effects of the leaking barrier. Getting it in place first was paramount if they hoped to reinforce the seal around the curse without a potential accident, causing everything to explode in a chain reaction.

The reinforcements were much like the protective blocks Milaro taught Quinn to use in her own mind. They clicked in together like the building blocks she’d had as a child, except she smoothed over where they joined, making the cracks disappear.

They moved, each around a side, slowly and deliberately, their own power being supported from without by Geneva and Lynx funneling power to keep the flow steady and the output even.

It took so much effort. By the time they reached the backside of the pillar, Quinn had not only lost track of time but also of where exactly she was standing. Even though a part of her knew Geneva and Lynx were keeping the ground clear so they had ease of movement, a portion of her worried that the instability would be an issue.

They worked tirelessly, creating smooth texture where the inner walls of the pillar had begun to crumble due to the onslaught of negative energies emanating from the prison containing the slight dimensional shift.

Finally, the protective sealant was back in place, and now, they had to turn their attention to the prison itself.

Remarkable

Milaro’s voice echoed through Quinn’s thoughts, and she had to agree. How Lynx had managed to construct such an intricate and solid prison in the space of mere seconds was beyond her. She didn’t understand the half of it.

But now there were cracks, and they needed to reinforce it.

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Follow my lead. I will need your strength and your power. When I tell you to use your elemental abilities, you need to be ready to act with pinpoint precision. I’ll also need you to reinforce the shielding once we’re done with your Draconic line.

Quinn hesitated to agree when he said that, but he immediately sought to allay her fears.

I will guide you, but I don’t have a Draconic line of innate magic. That’s species specific. Do you understand?

She nodded and then realize he might not realize she’d done that. Yes, I can do it.

Quinn could feel his smile through their connection. Fine. She hadn’t needed to speak at all.

Despite the prison appearing like a round ball, its surface was jagged and unpredictable. They felt around the surface and Quinn could feel Milaro frowning.

This should be smooth he spoke into her mind.

So then... we need to make it smooth again? Smooth it over?

Yes, although it sounds much easier than I think it’ll be.

We can do it. She said with a lot more confidence than she felt.

They dove into work.

Quinn could feel the lines of sweat forming on her forehead and the nape of her neck. Channeling so much power through such an intricate fine line was taking its toll. Her energy levels weren’t depleting, though. They’d raised so much since everyone was injured.

She focused on finding the root of the jagged lines and filling them in like putty with clay. Smoothing them over and heating them with fire, as Milaro directed her to do, sort of melting them all together and reinforcing them with power and shielding of her own.

The arduous task began to take its toll on her, and she could feel her physical strength waning. Still, they powered through. With half of the prison smoothed and reinforced, the trapped soul, even located in the dimension just out of kilter with their own, began to squirm.

It thrashed and screamed, flashing all sorts of images their way. Most of them didn’t make it but seemed to fall short, giving Quinn a bare glimpse of what lay beyond, of what might be in store for them if this curse bomb were to go off. It was so much worse than anything she’d anticipated.

Visions of destruction, of chaotic energy eating at innocents, of waves of black sludge engulfing worlds and solar systems in a greed to take back the power it needed to thrive.

The frantic emanations shook the pillar and the platform all around them. As if from a dream, Quinn could feel a shower of something rain down over her head and knew even the ceiling of the cavern was being shaken enough to let dirt and debris loose.

She narrowed the focus of her concentration, determined to fix this, to fill it in and give them more leeway. They couldn’t let this come to pass.

The close they got to filling in all the cracks, the more they filled it in, the more the curse thrashed around, practically screaming to be let out.

It took all her willpower to maintain concentration. Part of what helped was the steady hand of Milaro guiding the whole process.

Closer and closer they moved to completion, containing all the anger and vitriol into that one space, plugging the leaks and leaving the prison smooth as brand new.

Finally, after going over it another three times, just to make sure, after smoothing, setting, and firing it up, the prison seal was complete. Even the wall containing it had been reinforced.

Quinn opened her eyes, blinking rapidly at the bright blue light all around them emanating from the mana lake, and stumbled immediately.

“Well done.” Milaro caught her elbow and helped her right herself.

“That was...” Quinn searched for a word other than scary. “That was interesting.”

Milaro laughed and Lynx landed next to them, an eyebrow raised in question.

“She said it was interesting.” Geneva explained to the manifestation.

“Ah.” Lynx cocked his head to one side and a small smile spread over his face. “I do believe you have brought us some more time. Did you attune it to take the fluctuating power levels into consideration?”

Quinn nodded, but then looked at Milaro for confirmation.

“We did.” The elf king answered. “But it took a lot of energy and more mana than I like. Quinn might have some energy left, but mine is close to depleted. We need to get back up top and take care of ourselves.”

“How long do you think it’ll last?” Geneva asked as they flew to the shore.

Milaro shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. The power levels might be compensated for, however, I’m not sure how long it’s going to last. It still batters the whole prison around a bit. But it should be good long enough to allow us to figure out how to nullify it.”

Back on the shore, Quinn looked toward the pillar. The black and red ominous glow had heavily diminished. She frowned. “Are you sure it’s going to buy us enough time?”

“I can’t be sure of anything, but it should buy us enough.” Milaro began moving toward the exit as Aradie swooped into view.

She landed on Quinn’s shoulder, hooting softly.

“Really?” Quinn asked, reaching up to scratch behind the owl’s ears.

The look Aradie gave her was one of impatience. And of course I meant what I conveyed sort of expression.

Quinn chuckled. “Jasper is in the ritual chamber getting ready to retrieve an exact location from the alchemical and medicinal books.”

Geneva turned around. “It was a good idea to leave the circle there. Makes things a lot easier.”

Quinn shrugged. “Back on my world, we have an app that can find almost anything. It finds phones, laptops, EarPods... If we had that for the Library we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Sounds intriguing. Do you have anything more than vague descriptors to go on that we might make something similar?” Milaro asked, tempering the snark with a smile.

“No. I’m not techy enough for that. However... I’m sure Mal,” but she stopped short, not sure when Mal would be enough of himself to do much else. “Anyway. We can figure out adaptability of technology at a later date.”

They came up to the room slowly. The thrum through the entire chamber was so much more peaceful now they’d re-confined the damned curse. It reminded Quinn of the soothing hum underlying the Library the first time she encountered it. As if it was an actual part of her being.

Quinn poked her head around the archway that led into the chamber. It was precisely as they’d left it. Jasper leaned over several of the runes carved into the floor, examining them and adjusting edges. She didn’t even look up when they entered, lost in thought, concentrating.

Milaro cleared his throat when it became obvious that Jasper wasn’t about to notice them and Lynx was currently connecting to the Core and completely out of it. “Jasper. Do you need help?”

Jasper started and turned to face them all, her usual excitable energy rippling across the room. “Yes! This is perfect. I need the names of the books and the last known locations. We should be able to determine where they are quickly.”

“We know where the Hunter Guide is. We don’t need to find that one. Just the other two.” Lynx said, coming out of his trance. Something about him caught Quinn’s eye. He was definitely doing a lot better than he had been. His subtle purple glow was back.

“Excellent.” Jasper wiggled her fingers in an excellent mimicry of Milaro. “Got that map ready, Lynx?”

The Library manifestation nodded.

Jasper’s eyes were practically on fire. They twinkled so brightly. “Let’s get started then, shall we?”