Library System Reset: Limiter (A Magical Library LitRPG Adventure), page 53
Some shadows fell prey to lava, others disintegrated as they came in contact with traps Geneva set, and more yet fell to arrows that Quinn hadn’t seen Malakai use before. The only thing she could take solace in was the fact he wasn’t using magic. Her net was attuned to it, and she’d know.
Oh, how she’d know if he went against his healing regimen.
Aradie swooped around, dive bombing and laser eyeing every attacker she could find while staying conspicuously out of reach.
Quinn could still sense the magic building from where Jasper performed her door creation ritual or whatever she was doing to allow them to pass in through to the Library again. Quinn shrouded the sensation as well as she could, aiming for it to appear weak to anyone else. They couldn’t have the attackers going for the large area of magic over there.
Stupid damned door requirement. Why couldn’t she just teleport them all home in an emergency Librarian move . . .
But her thoughts were cut short when her Aracnio attacker performed what looked like a capoeira-style leap toward her with sharpened legs fanning out in all directions.
Quinn’s dragon scales flashed, solidifying in a shot of blue armor, staving off the entire attack and she stumbled as they melted back into her skin, showing off iridescent scales that blended in with her own coloring. Except she felt an interested purr emanating from across the way where Dru and Dro were fighting.
“What have we here? A little cosmico? How did I not know about this?” Dro’s attention waned for just a moment, giving her baby sister the chance to get a solid attack in.
Blackened blood, or at least some sort of black liquid flew out from a wound that drew in all the surrounding darkness.
Dro spat. “How dare you! I will make you pay, and you will tell me how you had a child.”
Drukala barely managed to fend off the attack, and Quinn realized she had to focus on her own, too.
A thought brushed across her mind. Focus on your own fight. We will get you back home. Drukala’s voice was smooth like velvet as it glided across the front of her thoughts.
It wasn’t that Quinn relaxed, but she focused her attacks more readily, deeper. She fought with cutting wind, melding several air affinities together, making the wind harder to stop. Its pinpoint accuracy focused on chopping the bladed feet of this Aracnio off. She was only thankful it wasn’t one of the handful of Aracnios she’d actually met in her life.
Her mana and energy replenishment abilities continued to drain from the ambient mana, and their opponents, and replenish the mana of her expedition party.
And Jasper’s ritual circle power continued to build.
It took Quinn back for a moment to when Escadril opened the door when they went to find Kajaro. Back when he was still alive. Before that rotting tree killed him.
Just another reason to fight, just another reason to save the Library.
Dro and Dru clashed fiercely, and the rest of the fights carried on around the perimeter. The dragons were fast, diving for each other, scratching, biting, with the occasional drip of flame melting something before it regenerated. Which reminded Quinn to push a heftier healing charm into effect over all of her friends since Geneva was otherwise preoccupied. She had to protect everyone as best she could.
Geneva screamed, and Quinn couldn’t afford to look back, but she heard Eric yelling something and knew Geneva would be okay. Quinn pushed more power into her shields, replenishing life force and energy. She’d know if one of them were hit badly.
But the Aracnio in front of her was formidable even without two of its feet, and she couldn’t afford to get distracted.
“Stop it!” Dro screamed at her sister. “You are no match for me! Just give me the damned book already. You weren’t supposed to have it.”
Quinn cleared the surfaces of her mind just in case an ability existed allowing someone to get the location of the tome from her.
“Why are you doing this?” Dru, on the other hand, didn’t scream. Her voice was calm, collected, filled with a sadness so poignant that Quinn could barely stand it. She couldn’t imagine how it might feel to have family and then suddenly be on opposing sides of a fight. Imagine having to try to convince your sibling that every life deserves to exist, even if chaos would otherwise consume them.
“The Library was a mistake. One we have to rectify.” Dro sounded suddenly so defeated for just a second. As if she was tired. “We all know it. Stop fighting it.”
Quinn couldn’t figure out how that would be the case. The Library preserved knowledge; it preserved the universe as it was.
A rush of fire spilled through the middle of the cavern, causing many of them to dash out of the way. Drukala blocked it like she was an umbrella stopping rain.
Quinn’s next wind blade finally took out a third leg, and the Aracnio fighting her began to fight furiously. It spat at her—something that sizzled against the ground when she dodged it. Quinn gulped. Glad to have avoided it and scared to be hit by it in the future. It only fueled her need for them to escape this.
The next attack clipped her side, and while her scales rushed there to protect her, she could feel the rent it caused in her skin, as it separated. Even as blood began to trickle down her side. She sent a tendril of healing that way. To knit together, to congeal, to heal and keep it in place.
Affinities required so much to function seamlessly. Quinn felt entirely privileged to have all the affinities. Her breathing came ragged, slower to her now, even though she tried to gasp it in. Another wind blade hit the back leg of the Aracnio, and it pitched forward. That same blade took out two shadow creatures behind it, too.
Quinn glanced around, noticing Hal was almost done with the second sedimentite. Geneva was hidden next to Malakai, nursing her side as Eric still lead the others on a merry goose chase, kiting the shadows around while Geneva and Mal picked them off.
And Jasper was almost done with the door.
Not many of the either of the shadow armies remained. They seemed perfectly adept at ripping each other apart.
Dru appeared to be okay. Several gashes down one of her sides left trickles of blood dribbling down. Quinn reinforced the healing regeneration shield, and the protection layer around her, feeding more power and energy into them.
Dro’s eyes flashed back to Quinn, focusing on her and rendering her immobile for just a heartbeat. “You!”
Luckily, Dru took that moment to viciously attack her sister, breaking her sister’s attention on Quinn in the nick of time. Only Quinn’s calf was caught by a flailing remaining leg of the feebly bleeding-out Aracnio she faced. Another tendril of healing to her wound and Quinn was about done with this.
Her energy was starting to wane. Literally. While she still had substantial resources, she was dipping below fifty percent now. Protecting this many people with healing and regen was a drain.
A roar rang out behind Quinn, and she turned, coincidentally avoiding the attack of one of the shadow army behind her. Only to see Dro partially transformed into what looked like a mini cosmicisodracus. About the size of two horses together.
Dro roared again, spewing fire directly in front of her, and Quinn reacted.
Motioning with her hands, she slammed a shield between the two dragons, instantly reflecting some of that flame back on the attacker. Dro screeched, rolling on the ground to put out the flames engulfing her own body. Flames of her own making.
But Quinn wasn’t quite fast enough and neither was Dru.
Drukala screamed in pain as parts of her hair burned, still caught not quite fully transformed, and some of the skin on her face melted even through the scale barrier that sprouted up.
Suddenly, Hal was by Drukala’s side, stopping the fire, placing himself between Dru and Dro.
For a second the crackle of fire as it petered out on Dro was the only sound in the entire cavern.
70
FIGHTING CHANCE
The crackling was almost unbearable. Quinn wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it. She balked, even as she could hear the rest of them all around her coming back to themselves, remembering they needed to fight. Still needing to distract their attackers from where Jasper was busy creating the damned doorway they needed.
Hal shielded the partially melting form of Drukala. Although Quinn was relieved to see that the healing magic she’d tossed over appeared to be having some sort of impact, at least. She also knew that cosmicisodracus weren’t exactly fragile, but their fire was also pretty powerful.
Dro rolled onto the ground. Ultimately, she’d received the lion’s share of the backlash of her own spell. Her hide was crackled, still in the mini dragon form that she found herself.
Something tugged inside Quinn’s chest, in her head, giving her that weird sort of déjà vu that always hung over her when her magic was about to do some of the solving for itself. Stretching out an arm, she envisioned the flames contained the charred hide of the dragon to snuff out the rest of the damage, and slowly begin to heal.
At the same time, her understanding of both fibers, their creation, and the permanency of thread ignited to create a magical binding around Dro . . . whose full name Quinn was dying to find out. She had to be trussed up. If she wasn’t, she posed too much of a threat to them all. As it was, with Dru and Geneva down, Quinn herself injured and only marginally patched up . . . she wasn’t liking the odds ahead of them.
Even Hal, now that she peered and looked closer with the flamed having died down, had scrapes and wounds littered across his body that were only slowly healing because of the regeneration she’d covered them in. Still, it didn’t keep him from fending off more of the shadow soldiers and giving both him and Dru some distance from Dro.
A ripple echoed through the chamber. Though it was more of a feeling than a sound.
Jasper finally stepped away and back into the flickering light of the cave to reveal the doorway she’d created. Perspiration clung to her skin, lending her a sallow appearance. “Heavily warded areas are not meant for rituals, when it’s not warded because of one.” She flashed Quinn a wan smile, stumbling to rest against the wall.
“Retreat!” Quinn called out, although that wasn’t really what this was. After all, they were just going home, thanks to Jasper, whom she tossed a grateful half-smile. She glanced at Dro for a second, wondering if they should take her with them.
Hal caught her eye and shook his head. The older cosmicisodracus was still immobile, thanks to Quinn’s bindings, but was also gasping wheezing breaths, as if she was struggling to live at all. Quinn needed to study dragon fire in a wee bit more detail, but knew that restraining one would be nigh impossible.
She kept her concentration on the bindings as she moved across to the door.
Malakai moved fluidly, hauling Geneva gently onto his side as he kept aim with his bow at the remnants of the shadow army while Eric still took care of them. He stepped over their traps easily, his eyes never straying from his targets despite the fact that he didn’t miss a step in the direction of the door.
Eric, in the meantime, continued to lead the shadows on a strange chase, despite the fact that there were plenty more of them to fight. They seemed entranced by something he’d done. Like they were charmed, as if they compulsively had to follow him.
Quinn was so preoccupied as she moved through the cavern that she let her guard down slightly. The Aracnio she’d presumed to be dead caught her boot, one of its last remaining legs cutting deeply into her calf. She stumbled, going down, losing her concentration. And then Hal was there, scooping her up underneath her arm and guiding her toward the door as he leveraged a ball of lava to finish off the Aracnio that sought to fell her.
“Move. As fast as you can.”
Quinn didn’t need to be told twice, and she pushed her magic through her body, healing herself instinctively.
Malakai arrived first, and she could hear him and Jasper talking.
“Hospital obviously. We can’t pour out into the damned main section of the Library with potentially badly wounded members.” He sounded irritated, as if he thought the information was commonplace and logical.
She couldn’t blame him, and Jasper seemed suitably chastised. “Yeah. I’ll recalibrate it for a second. Step out of the circle.”
Malakai turned his attention back to picking the last shadow stragglers off.
“We should take . . .” Quinn began, but Hal silenced her with a pointed look.
“We have too many of us injured already. While Dru is friendly and we can help her, I cannot guarantee that Dro won’t place the Library and all of us in imminent danger. I can’t express how much of a bad decision it would be to take her. Not even my cells can hold your type.”
“Should we kill her?” Malakai asked, his voice soft, forthright.
Hal glanced back at where the charred dragon body lay, barely breathing. He shook his head. “Couldn’t manage that if you tried. There’s a reason the Library shapeshifted like it did.”
Drukala groaned next to him.
“She looks pretty out of it.”
The King of Halschius shrugged. “Dragon fire is probably the worst thing they could use against each other. It does damage they can’t immediately heal fully.”
Eric began to make his way over and Jasper finally stepped back from the door.
She twisted the strange handle and pulled it toward them, revealing the corridor that led to the hospital wing of the Library just beyond.
Quinn couldn’t help but heave a huge sigh of relief but then, as Malakai entered, carrying Geneva carefully, Quinn turned to Hal and asked, “Are we just going to leave her there or let her escape?”
He shook his head. “No. I’ll come back and get her as soon as we have everyone else settled.”
On his arm, Drukala seemed to wilt ever so slightly more, but Quinn was purely grateful she’d managed to stop some of the damage from spreading, at least.
Eric remained, as if standing on guard while Hal and Drukala ventured through next. Quinn’s foot still smarted, but it wasn’t a bad injury, nothing she couldn’t heal on her own and spare the doctors in the hospital. She motioned for Jasper to walk through first, but her friend only offered a tight smile. “Nope. Caster has to go through last.”
“In that case . . .” Eric winked at them and flitted through first.
The shadows left in his wake were few and slowed down into a sort of dark molasses as created by his lava attacks.
Quinn stepped through, looking back to make sure Jasper followed her.
But Jasper shook her head. “No. You won’t be able to get back through the door if I close the ritual circle. I’ll just wait.”
Something flashed in Quinn’s peripheral vision, brief and hot, but suddenly time felt like it slowed.
Quinn reacted faster than she thought possible. Reaching through and around, she grabbed Jasper’s hand, tugging her forward as abruptly as she could. Still, the arrow of fire lanced through the doorway, clipping Jasper’s side instead of impaling her fully, and they both stumbled through the door, spilling to the ground as it shut behind them.
Immediately alert, Quinn reached out to the Library, sounding the medical alarm.
“Jasper . . . Jasper,” she said, sending as much healing energy as she could through her friend.
No. No. She wasn’t sure if she was muttering it out loud. All she could do was pull everything she knew about healing, everything she knew about magic and try and repair the damage.
Red tendrils spread from the wound in her side, a whole chunk of flesh missing, of her body. The wound gaped like a maw, hungry and relentless.
Quinn had no idea about this anatomy, but she was fairly sure it looked like something mostly important was missing now.
And her healing magic did nothing.
Nothing at all.
Jasper’s breathing came in short, staccato bursts as the wound spread . . . shallow and painful. Her eyes were unfocused and her hand gripped Quinn’s with far too little strength for the Librarian’s liking.
The edges of the skin began to blacken, and Quinn poured in everything she had. All the healing affinities she’d read about, all the anatomy she’d scanned. It poured from her in a halo of blue and purple power pooling around them both.
And still Jasper’s grip grew weaker, even if her breath seemed somewhat steadier.
And still the blood leaked from her body, spreading out like a pool that would never end.
“Don’t you dare . . . you stay with me. You owe me ritual circles for days,” Quinn muttered, just wanting to give something for the injured woman to cling onto.
There was no recognition in her eyes at all. They were fading, clouding over.
Quinn didn’t know how much time had passed, but she knew it couldn’t have been that long could it? The Library could pull strings. It could help.
They’d save her. They had to.
Dr. Miles was there, suddenly, barking out orders that Quinn couldn’t quite comprehend. She found him asking her questions and giving him answers in a monotone voice that didn’t sound like her own.
Jasper was deftly but gently removed from her hands and leveraged, while Quinn remained on her knees, her hands in her lap, trying to process everything that’d happened. The blood pooled around her and she realized in a detached sort of way that Jasper bled a sort of purple hue of deep red.
It was so pretty.
Quinn replayed the moments in her mind and realized belatedly she’d lost control of the binding spell on Dro when she’d tripped. She hadn’t even realized she’d been actively maintaining it.
Funny, that.
“Quinn?”
She blinked up to find Malakai and Milaro standing over her, looks of sincere concern on their faces, and she was fairly sure those were tear tracks down their cheeks, but it was hard to see through her own.
Mal crouched in front of her, a frown appearing. “I’m pretty sure at least some of that is your blood.”
Quinn blinked at him and looked down. Flashes of the car accident passed through her head as the blue scales flickered in the light of the hospital. “Oh. I think I healed myself.”
