After devouring several more books on magical theory, and researching for golem specific books, Quinn went to sleep. She woke up the following morning refreshed, probably earlier than she would usually have, but with a renewed sense of determination. She stretched and grinned at Aradie, who hooted at her in a very disgruntled manner.
“What?” Quinn said. “It’s a brand new day and we have a list a mile long.”
The bird turned away and deliberately buried her face to the side.
She shrugged, got up, showered, and pulled on jeans and a shirt this time. She wiggled into the soft denim jeans, chucked on her combat boots, and buttoned up her shirt. She beckoned to Aradie, who gave her a side-eye, then took the stairs at a hover. Down at the bottom, she walked toward her office full of purpose, sending out a request to Lynx to have him come and talk to her as soon as she got there.
He was already waiting when she stepped in all of 30 seconds later. She raised an eyebrow and pulled up the stats for the Library as it was right then. She frowned at the HUD.
Main Branch Tome Report
3198 are still outstanding from the initial overdue amount. 14844 books returned. No books in reproduction. 231 in repair status. 16 missing restricted books.
Horticulture: 592/720
Bardic Musical: 778/897
Crafting: 653/730
Academy: 666/785
Culinary Arts: 282/282 - Culinary Branch Open - 3015 Books of 3795 remaining, 780 culinary specialist books returned. Would you like a categorical breakdown? Would you like a categorical breakdown?
Yes, or No?
Alchemical/Medicinal: 384/384 - Alchemical/Medicinal Branch Open - 5321 of 5892 remaining, Medicinal ingredients verified and stocked, 652 books in repair status. Would you like a categorical breakdown?
Yes, or No?
Combat: 837/837 - Combat Branch Open - 8612 Books of 9085 remaining, 173 combat specialist books returned. 135 books in repair status. All book’s location verified. Would you like a categorical breakdown?
Yes or No?
“Damn it.” She muttered under her breath, causing Lynx to glance at her. “Give me total books requiring retrieval.”
Between all currently available branches 20146 books require retrieval. 16 restricted books are missing several of which have yet to be determined.
“That’s not fair. That’s more books than we even started with,” she complained and then took a deep breath. That was a lot of books they still needed to retrieve, especially now that the combat branch was open. They were still inching along toward opening the next branch. It was all achievable if irritating.
“Which branch do you think we should open first, Lynx?”
“I don’t...” He frowned and obviously looked at the numbers because his eyes flickered. “Crafting is the most logical, since you can’t open the Academy until all the others are open. 77 books seems the most efficient way to begin.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good point. It’s looking pretty close for all of them now.” Overdue books would always exist, but if they could get the ones from the initial openings, they should be good. “One day, one day we’ll get there. We’re lucky the library held any books returned for the unopened branches in storage until we could open them.”
“Those returns will only increase as more time passes, too. Anyway. Why did you summon me if you’re just examining your HUD and returns?” Lynx sounded oddly out of sorts, much more disagreeable than usual.
Quinn grinned at him. She was in a great mood. She was going to find her aunt dragon person, and she would meet another one of her technical relatives, perhaps get to understand herself even more, retrieve one of the super dangerous books, making it even less likely that Sölem could dimensionally upset the Library and then she’d be another step closer to finally being able to relax and enjoy being a Librarian. Nothing would ruin her mood.
“You know I haven’t finished the calculations and I can’t quite pinpoint Drukala’s precise location yet, right? You’re going to have to wait,” Lynx said.
Quinn stopped short. “Really? But it’s been days already.” Even though she tried not to, she could hear a tinge of whining in her voice.
“Yes. And it’s been millions of years since we’ve seen her. She’s not easy to find. We know it’s her because of the dead space in the area. But it’s a massive blanket that’s purpose is to discourage people from finding her and pinpointing her location. Every single dragon has it. It’s a defensive mechanism.”
“Why doesn’t the Library have it?” Quinn asked, wondering if she too had something like that.
“That’s just it, Quinn. It does. Yes, you can access the Library through any door from anywhere when it’s open. When the Library isn’t open, when locked down, nobody can locate this space. There was no way for anyone to get in here while we were closed because they couldn’t find it. I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “I realize I sound really annoyed because I am, but it’s not you. It’s the whole situation. We’re getting more of our memories back. Things are, you know, moving along. Eventually everything will be fine. But you’ll have to wait at least another few days before we can go and get the book back.”
Quinn let herself fall into her chair and sighed. “Fine. I was really looking forward to meeting a dragon that’s actually like, you know, a dragon.”
Lynx chuckled. “I don’t think Drukala is going to live up to your expectations, but I’ll let you have your little fantasies.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean? Not going to live up to my fantasies?”
He paused as if he was choosing his words carefully. “Just Drukala is very eccentric.”
“That’s what people say when they have no idea how to describe a person,” Quinn said suspiciously.
“Exactly,” Lynx said. “I have no idea how to describe Drukala to you.”
“Hey, wait a second,” Quinn suddenly realized even though he’d mentioned her name several times. “You know which sibling it is.”
“Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean much. You can’t go right now because I can’t guarantee that where we’ll send you will be safe.” He paused a second. “Or even accurate.”
“Wait!” She held up a hand. “I thought we weren’t supposed to say their names out loud.”
Lynx paused with a frown on his face. “Drukala is sleeping. We’re trying to wake her up. Plus she’s not the Library or Drav so we’re pretty much in the clear there.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“As long as you think so,” Quinn said, not completely understanding it, but okay to leave it. “I’ve been here for like, what, almost half a year? I guess it’s not going to kill us to wait another five days or a week or something to go get the damn book.”
Lynx chuckled again, “You know, you sound like you don’t like going out and exploring when I know for a fact that the opposite is true.”
Aradie hooted in a very low, almost laughing manner. Quinn promptly ignored the owl.
“I do like it. I like visiting other places and meeting other species and checking out other worlds and seeing how different some of them are. It’s just I wish it wasn’t always with this impetus hanging over my head that means I can’t enjoy it. So I’m just aiming for that day. And the more books we can retrieve and the more branches we can open, the more power we can gain, the more of our enemies we can uncover, the more of the mysteries we can solve, the more of the problems we find a resolution to, the closer I get to being able to actually enjoy being a Librarian,” Quinn took a second before continuing. “So you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a bit excited to get shit done.”
Lynx nodded. “Perfectly understandable. But it’s not like you’re lacking things to take up your time, Quinn.”
“I know you don’t have to tell me that,” she said, “although I guess you just did. Still, well, I do have to work on...” she mulled things over and was thankfully pulled out of her thoughts when there was a rap on the door. She looked up and squinted.
“Nishpa?”
“Can I come in?” The Firionas sounded extremely tired, worn out, and perhaps even a bit irritated.
Quinn squinted at her. “From your expression, I don’t think I’m going to like what you have to say.”
“Well, you might, you might not,” Nishpa shrugged and fluttered over to the desk. “But I thought I would give you the report we have on the Bardocian root used on the Balisors. It is indeed 100% certain that the root strain is one linked and genetically related to one of the petraligno variants registered with the Library system several million years ago. It’s one of the oldest strains and was registered manually originally, so it was quite difficult to track down. I’m uncertain how it got in there or how the Irias impersonator infiltrated because they weren’t a petraligno. Anyway, it just reinforces that the petraligno factions and the Sölem are involved in this whole thing together.”
Quinn nodded slowly. “I’ll figure out someone to chase down this information. Thank you so much.”
Nishpa nodded curtly. “Which brings me to my next point. Most of the hospital is under control. The patients are well in hand by both doctors, who will keep you informed. But I, I have to go and check on Milaro.”
Quinn watched her for a moment, knowing exactly why. “I’m worried about him, too.”
Nishpa nodded.
“Will you please keep me informed?” Quinn asked Nishpa.
“Of course. But... you know I won’t be able to do the supervisory work I took on.”
Quinn waved the concern away. “I only asked you to do that because you were in the hospital anyway, helping with the mind healing. I figured that way you could help the doctors settle in and figure out everything.”
“Understood,” Nishpa said, pausing for a moment. “I’m sorry, Quinn. This all has me very stressed. I’m sure it has you stressed as well. Milaro’s mental condition hasn’t been the best for the past few months. He’s been overtaxing himself, overtaxing the Areiltháhnish protections and domain. It’s one big mess. He’s stretched himself too thin and I won’t let that continue. So, I will take my leave.”
She fluttered closer to Quinn and gave her what looked like a pearl brooch. “All you need to do is touch the pearl in the middle of that and utter the following incantation: ‘Contact Nishpa, codeword Quinn.’”
“Contact Nishpa, codeword Quinn?” Quinn repeated, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“Yes. You could also project it from your mind into the item and it’ll contact me mentally. You’ll be able to communicate with me. It’s easier and less taxing that telepathy. Okay?”
“Okay,” Quinn agreed.
But Nishpa pounded it into her head. “This way you have direct contact with me should you need something. It also gives you direct contact with Milaro because I will be by his side, forcing the stubborn old goat to relax.”
Quinn nodded slowly. “Thank you.”
“I’ll take my leave now.” Quinn watched her go, pushing down on the need to sigh. She liked Nishpa’s company. She liked her being in the Library. Having her around gave Quinn a soothing sense of calm.
“Quinn,” Lynx said, breaking the silence. “Are you okay?”
“Deep in thought, Lynx. Deep in thought.”
At that time, Betty fluttered in. Quinn felt like she had a revolving door. People going in and out with varying issues before she could manage to get a hold of the previous thing. Before Betty could speak, Malakai sauntered in after her.
“Well, are we going?” he asked, excitement lighting up his eyes. He was completely kitted out. Leather travel armor that, from its aura, was full of magical defenses. His bow slung over one shoulder, and she knew the rest of his stuff would be in his storage.
“And just where are we going, Mal?” Quinn asked, her tone teasing.
He blinked. “Well, to get... Oh, you mean location,” he said, his thoughts catching up to his speech. “I didn’t really think of that.”
Lynx scoffed. “Of course you didn’t think of it. It’s because I have to do all the thinking. You’re just a darigháhnish.”
“At least I’m always solid,” Mal retorted.
“That’s no help when you’re getting shot full of electricity.”
“Ouch,” Mal winced. “That’s too soon. That was a low blow, Lynx.”
Lynx shrugged. “Hey, you didn’t even take me along.”
Quinn laughed. “Will you two stop it?”
Betty looked at all three of them before speaking. “I just thought you’d want to know that I’ve gone over all the staffing problems we have. And you see, because we’ve just opened these brand new two branches, we’re going to need a lot more assistance. We’ve had such an influx of new patrons coming in, or I guess you’d call them old patrons in a lot of ways, because now that these new branches have come out and we’ve pinged people that the books are due back and that these branches are open, we’ve actually begun having a rather large influx of patrons.”
“Okay,” Quinn said, trying her best to steer Betty back on track. “So what do we need to do?”
“Oh, we need to put out a recruitment notice. Make sure that they fulfill at least four of those 16 affinity requirements, and then I need to train them. It’s going to take a while. Can we do it as soon as possible, please? That’d be the best thing for the Library right now, because everybody’s working double shifts, and the days off that you promised people aren’t quite fitting into the schedule.” Betty shook her head for emphasis.
Quinn blinked. Betty could speak so fast that it sometimes took Quinn’s brain a little while to catch up on what she’d said. “I don’t see a problem with that. Is there something you needed me to do? Did I not give you the right permissions to do it?”
“No, you did. But because of the massive influx, and the fact that we even have some of the shelving golems helping out in a capacity that they usually wouldn’t, I wanted you to understand that this isn’t just going to be a small hiring where you hire like a dozen new assistants. I’ll probably have to bring in at least two dozen, maybe 30, because in order to keep the roster allocations, the shifts down to size, and to make sure that we have enough people should assistants need to take vacations...” Betty looked up at Quinn expectantly.
Quinn glanced back down at the information she had pulled up on her HUD about the other Library branches. She pursed her lips and thought, “Maybe we should over-hire.”
“What do you mean?” Betty asked, her brows furrowing in confusion.
“Exactly that. I think maybe we should over-hire assistants, because by the looks of things, hopefully soon, we’ll be opening at least one other branch, and we’ll need to have more then. This way, we can balance more of the shifts, and we should be prepared for when that opens.”
“Oh, marvellous.” Betty clapped her tiny little hands. “That’s an excellent idea. I will adjust recruitment up to around 40 people. What do you think?”
Quinn nodded very slowly. “Yeah, I think that’s going to work.” Even though that felt like a lot of people. But the Library could expand so at least potential accommodation was taken care of.
“This is wonderful, Librarian. Now, is there anything else you need me to do?”
“No, just keep doing what you’re doing, and make sure you’re taking days off.”
“Of course I’m taking days off. I’m not here all the time or anything like that,” Betty said, in a tone that made Quinn think she was definitely lying.
“Okay,” Quinn said. “Well, you do that then. There’s just one thing that has to happen.”
“What?” Betty asked, almost on her way out.
“Make sure every single applicant is heavily screened, and even if they don’t seem suspect. I want us to try to screen their families, too, because after the Finn incident, I really don’t trust anybody or their families until I know them. Mana distribution, the magic, and everyone else, — I want to keep them all safe. So screening is necessary.”
I can help do that, the Library offered. I have adjusted and tweaked our scanning properties. I will endeavour to extend it.
“Thanks,” Quinn said.
“Excellent,” Betty bowed with a flourish. “That’s all sorted out, then. Thank you.” And she was gone.
Quinn blinked. That sprite was full of so much energy, Quinn felt tired just listening to her.
Lynx laughed. “She has that effect on people.”
“Right,” Quinn said, looking at him. “Anyway, what were we talking about?”
“Don’t you try to get out of it.”
“Get out of what?” Quinn asked, feigning innocence.
“Your affinity,” Lynx said. “You still haven’t worked on your new affinity, Quinn. And it is way past time.”