Library System Reset: Damaged: A Magical Library LitRPG, page 1
DAMAGED
LIBRARY SYSTEM RESET
BOOK TWO
K.T. HANNA
Copyright © 2024 by K.T. Hanna
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact author at kthannaauthor@gmail.com
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), owls, golems, places, buildings, worlds, Aracnios, Serpensirils, wormholes, or pocket-dimensions, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by Illustration by Marko Horvatin
Typography by Inorai
1st edition 2024
For Lola
For being relentlessly enthusiastic and supportive, not to mention a great friend.
CONTENTS
1. Calm Waters
2. Pages
3. Meeting Places
4. Discoveries
5. Discussion
6. Connections
7. Susceptible
8. Heads Up
9. Change of Plans
10. Digging Deeper
11. Waiting
12. Beneath the Core
13. The Lake
14. Pillars
15. Reset Accomplished
16. Into Her Own
17. Solutions
18. Everything
19. Affinity Definition
20. Restricted
21. Missing Fragments
22. Second Wave
23. Serpensiril
24. The Key to All Stuff-Ups
25. Interlopers
26. Best-Laid Plans
27. Incineration
28. Winding Down
29. Milaro
30. Synchronization
31. Disarray
32. Acclimation
33. Observation
34. Details
35. Frantic Footsteps
36. Pound of Flesh
37. Books Still Outstanding
38. Goes Both Ways
39. In the Loop
40. Practically Flawless
41. Heavy Consideration
42. With a Vigor
43. Filtration Has Finally Begun!
44. Cascading Water
45. Different Definitions
46. Watchful Eye
47. Hostile Copse
48. More than Ordinary
49. Out of Sorts
50. All the Skills
51. Deliberate Choices
52. Eight Thousand Years
53. Not Possible at This Moment
54. All This for a Damned Cookbook!
55. Rather Specific Afterthought
56. Anything But
57. Sinking Sensation
58. Somewhere in Between
59. Second Skin
60. Shadow of a Doubt
61. A Faint Hint of Bells
62. Leverage Your Strengths
Library System Reset: Rebound - Preview
Character & Species Glossary
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Also by K.T. Hanna
LITRPG
More LitRPG
1
CALM WATERS
Now that the Library was partially stabilized, it meant it no longer shook like a wet dog when it needed Quinn to do something. Not that her vertigo went away entirely, just that it wasn't induced by the Library throwing her around and sucking her into its own little pocket dimension.
Over the last weeks, Quinn had met more species than she’d read about in genre fiction, learned that talking furniture was an actual one of those species, and discovered that magic was real.
Not only that, but she’d gained two elven teachers in Milaro and Malakai, or friends, or something. But she also had an owl companion, Aradie, who was all the purple, green, and blue shades of midnight. Not to mention a talking, morphing-into-anything-he-wanted-to Library manifestation. Although Lynx was currently having a bit of a memory crisis.
All in all, as far as a magical Library went, this one was holding up pretty well.
Except for the whole sending her to world where time worked differently which made her deadline tick down even faster. And then there was the retrieving very important books from the chaos infested world of Dabilian where everything had been turned to igneous rock.
But apart from those things . . . everything was pretty great.
Quinn stretched, feeling nicely rested after the last few days. She pulled on a pair of comfortable pants—like those leggings with pockets that looked like slacks she'd always admired. Business casual on the outside, soft and stretchy on their deceptive little comfort side. She chose a soft white button-down blouse and a loose bow that was sort of like a tie around her neck came next.
She could have sworn she'd seen librarian uniforms outfits like this. To be fair, she was trying to appear a little more professional but thought she’d probably revert to yoga pants and sweatshirts soon enough.
Either way, she was all about ease of movement and comfort. Next, she grabbed a little badge and popped it on the left side of her chest. It simply read Quinn. It was much easier than introducing herself as a librarian; she liked just being a big part of the whole.
Finally, she pulled her black-brown hair up into a high messy bun, where two curls immediately came loose and attempted to annoy her face. She sighed. It seemed not even magic could fix her hair.
It had been a lovely few days since they returned from the Dabilian home world. She could almost forget that she'd been practically bitten in half by a mimic—an actual monster chest trying to eat her. She shook her head at the memory. Aradie hooted and landed on her shoulder. Luckily, all of her clothing now had a leather pad in the precise spot the owl liked to sit. At least she'd avoid her shoulder getting shredded.
Aradie hooted again and cast some images at Quinn.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm taking a while this morning. Today's the big day.” Nothing was going to dampen her mood this morning, not even a sometimes judge-y night owl. Who, it seemed, didn’t always like to use mindspeech. Images were so much harder to interpret.
Aradie craned her neck around and looked at Quinn, her black iridescent feathers sparkling in the bright morning light that shone through the windows. Windows that Quinn couldn't see out of because of how high up they were. She still had no clue where in the universe they actually were.
“What? It is a big day!” she said, raising an eyebrow at the bird. “The books should be ready; we should be able to use them today.”
The owl nodded, and Quinn smoothed down the uniform she'd chosen for the day, ready to face everyone downstairs. Even if she was running a bit behind late for the unwrapping of the three books they’d saved from the Dabilian home world. She made her way down the stairs into the wonderful Library she'd been sucked into.
The Library over the last few days had become a lot livelier. It seemed word was spreading that it being open was not a hoax and that the Library was, in fact, actually open. She descended the stairs very quickly, now quite certain of her footing as she ran down the spiral staircase, only to be greeted by Dottie at the bottom.
“You're late, Quinn,” the little bench said, her tone obviously disapproving. “We really have to make sure the books are fixed.”
A pang of guilt hit the Librarian. “I know, I apologize.”
“Did you sleep in deliberately? Did you oversleep? Did you overdo it last night? Have you been eating?” The bench's words practically tumbled over one another.
“I have not eaten yet. I didn't stay up too late, but I do think I worked a little bit too hard yesterday.” Quinn attempted to answer all of the questions.
“That's all? You overslept?” Those words gave a distinct hint of disapproval.
And Dottie’s disapproval had a way of worming in under your skin.
Quinn decided she should try a new tactic but didn't get very far. “You're not in the best mood today, Dottie.”
“Of course I'm not.” The bench gestured around with one of her front legs. “Look at the Library. It's very busy!”
And Quinn really took it in this time. Even though she'd got a glimpse of it as she walked down the stairs, there was actually a line at the check-in counter. Jim and Bob, the Aracnio brothers, didn’t seem to be dealing with it as well as she’d like.
Malakai and Milaro were nowhere to be seen. Although in his defense, Milaro had been gone a few days. She guessed he probably had kingly business back in his empire to take care of. Why he hung around the Library so much, she still wasn't quite sure, apart from the fact that he seemed to be the Library and Lynx's long-standing friend.
And Malakai had needed a couple of days to recover from his wound.
“Dottie, shouldn't you be overseeing the Aracnio brothers?”
“Well, I was just coming to check on you,” she said hurriedly and trotted off back to the check-in desk.
Quinn frowned. “That's odd.” She shrugged, knowing Dottie would step in and at least help. She glanced around, unable to see Lynx yet. He didn't appear to be there.
“Did you call for me?”
Quinn was quite proud that she didn't let out a yelp at his sudden appearance. “You've got to stop doing that. I was not directing my thoughts at you.”
“You weren't directing your thoughts at me, but you weren't concealing your thoughts from the Library, which means I could hear them.” He paused, giving her a rather disappointed look. “Really, Quinn, it's been a few days now, you should have got a hold of this.”
She glowered at him. “Seriously, I've had a lot to get a handle on.”
He grimaced. “True, true . . .”
“And I almost got eaten by a chest, by a mimic chest.” She finished off the barb.
“Oh, you're exaggerating.” Lynx waved it away. “Malakai said you barely got a scratch.”
“I didn't get a scratch. I just very almost got a lot of scratches, and my head bitten off.” She scowled at him.
“Quinn, don't catastrophize your encounter with the Mishiminaghakufrepil!”
She scowled at him. “I'll catastrophize any encounter where an apparent table turns into a chest that wants to eat my head. And it was a mimic.”
Lynx shrugged and changed the subject. “Have you had breakfast yet?”
“No.”
“I believe Cook made you cinnamon donuts.” It was like Lynx knew how much that would take her attention.
Quinn grinned at him. “Well, that's worth stopping this conversation.” She walked toward the kitchen, smelling the cinnamon in the air, glancing over at her office before she made it there. The Library was definitely coming along. She could feel more liveliness in every aspect around her. The Library was adapting to receiving more books, receiving more patrons. All of their ambient magic leaked into it. Every little bit counted.
At least now there was an actual Librarian to man the helm.
Quinn had long since decided she liked being the Librarian.
Cook did, in fact, have an entire platter of cinnamon donuts, and Quinn was not the only one eating them. He glanced up as she walked in.
“Hello,” Cook said. “You are late this morning, Librarian.”
Quinn grimaced that even Cook, the kitchen golem, noticed she was late. It was probably a bad thing. Everyone had access to the interface; they could all tell the time. She didn't even really have an excuse herself.
“It's not like I get paid,” she muttered under her breath.
Lynx nudged her with a very corporeal elbow. “What do you mean you don't get paid? Of course you get paid.”
“What, you're paying me in Earth dollars?” She raised an eyebrow at him.
“No, I'm paying you in Library currency.” He scoffed.
Quinn blinked. “There's a Library currency?”
“Yes, it's sort of a universal currency,” Lynx answered after a few seconds of contemplating her question.
“And where is this money?” She crossed her arms and shot him a glare.
He caught onto her look and finally seemed a little apologetic. “Well, you have a Library account.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and counted to five before looking at Lynx again. “We're gonna have a long talk soon about this whole need-to-know basis, plus your weird desire to keep stuff from me, before I figure out a way to throttle you.”
Lynx took an involuntary step back. “All of this should have been in the information that we transferred you via the chip.”
Quinn closed her eyes for a moment, filtering through information, and found it. Sort of. The whole transfer was sketchy as hell anyway. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, okay, I mostly know. It's just like online banking was back home. I'll be able to access it now . . .” And she was flabbergasted at the fact that the little screen that popped up in front of her had what looked like a very substantial balance of . . . “Is that universal Library currency, ULC?”
“Yes, precisely.” Lynx sounded a little offended.
“I'm sorry, I guess I haven't accessed all the notes properly?” Which felt odd for her since the other magic was accessed far more easily. There were what felt like roadblocks through all of her information.
“We’ve had nothing but trouble with me trying to transfer you the initial information for the Library.” Lynx let out a long-suffering sigh. “Once we get the infection of my systems sorted, I'll make sure to look further into this. You should probably just take a night and try to go through everything manually in your brain.”
With that, Lynx blinked out of the room.
Quinn cringed. She knew he was in a bad mood.
“Sometimes, Librarian, you can be somewhat abrasive,” Cook said, handed her a donut, and walked back to cooking.
Quinn stared after the cook. Cook was probably right. She could be abrasive. She didn't always realize it. She'd have to give the Library manifestation a good apology. As it was, she bit into her donut, glanced around the room and noticed that not only were some assistants sitting at one of the tables, but there were also several patrons at another.
She shrugged and walked out of the kitchen toward the check-in desk. “Do patrons just eat with us now, then?”
Dottie didn't show any other sign of noticing her presence other than to answer her. “Yes. We've always fed our patrons. We have food for everybody. That's the Library. If people need food, if people need shelter, if people need magic, if people need knowledge, they come to the Library. That's what we are.”
Quinn decided that Earth really needed a magical Library of its own. She moved farther into the check-in desk and cleared her throat. “Hey, Lynx, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'll do better.”
He actually flashed her a smile. “I understand it, you know. Perhaps now more than I would have five hundred years ago. This must be overwhelming. Lots of information. Way too much on your plate. I get it. You've done well so far.”
“Thank you,” Quinn said, preening a little. “We have a bit of time before the final book's done, right?”
He nodded. “It’s almost done. The others are ready. Are you sure you don't want to open the others now, Quinn?”
She shook her head adamantly. “In a bit. We went to retrieve all four of them together. We should open them all together.”
Next to her, Jim, the Aracnio, spoke to a patron who was returning four very dusty and damaged-looking books. There was a chittering sound behind every word the patron spoke. They looked beetle-like but about as big as a Great Dane. And they were explaining something to the assistant.
“These were my mother's books. They were kept in her burrow. She has been dead for a hundred years. We did not realize until we heard the return alert that we had Library books. We apologize for their condition.”
“That's okay,” said Jim. “Fines are waived for now.”
Quinn didn't understand what the creature in front of her was, even though the Library told her it was a Bectiwode. But the sigh of relief was palpable and understandable in any language. She smiled and nudged Lynx. “It was a good idea to not inflict fines on people yet.”
“For now,” he said, his tone serious. “In, what, just a little over three weeks, we're going to inflict as many fines as we want.”
“You sound positively overjoyed by that fact,” Quinn pointed out.
“I like giving people fines. Frankly, every predecessor of yours loved giving people fines, too,” Lynx explained.
Quinn grinned. “Maybe I'll let the power go to my head.”
Lynx laughed in response, just in perfect timing for Milaro to walk up to the counter and clear his throat. “You two seem to be having way too much fun,” he said.
Quinn rolled her eyes. He reached into his dimensional storage and pulled out three very heavy-looking bags in quick succession, placing them on the counter with a thud.
“These,” he said, “hold two hundred seventy thousand malachite shards. I have more and I have access to gaining even more. Because I know the Library needs to up its current store levels. This is a small contribution.”
Quinn smiled. But Lynx . . .
Lynx looked oddly perturbed.
Quinn nudged him. “Are you okay?”
Lynx shook his head and his reptilian eyes flashed briefly through a plethora of purple shades. “I . . . I . . .” He looked up at her again, confused.
“Is that one of your missing things?” she prodded gently.
