Chapter 102 To Be Conscious

The Madam of the brothel led Isaac and Lenna down a hall to a backroom door. “My Lord,” The Madam said with another low curtsy. “I believe this is the room you are looking for.”

Isaac eyed the door with an annoyed look plastered onto his face. In reality he was both enjoying himself and was curious to tackle whatever challenges the dwarf wizard had erected to prevent theft. “Wards.” He said as if he had just eaten something bland.

“Magical locks and hardening, I believe my Lord.” Lenna replied with a short bow.

Isaac gave the Madam a sidelong glance. “Key?” He asked. The door was iron with a complex keyhole marking their main obstacle.

“Apologies my Lord, I am afraid only the owner knows where that might be. Perhaps we could ask him once he… arrives.” She offered. It was clear she was trying to play her own little game but Isaac was having none of it.

He blew over her suggestion by taking a step towards the door and raising his right hand palm up to about the height of his shoulder. Shadows poured out of him and coalesced into a spear about as long as Isaac was tall and an inch thick. The spear was as strong as he could make it. So strong in fact that it had taken him a whole ten seconds to form it so he could make sure that the shadows were as dense as possible.

Isaac grabbed the spear, he pulled his hand back and threw it with everything he had at the door. He threw it not just with his arm but also his mind using his control over the mana. The spear lanced into the door but didn’t quite penetrate it. He pulled his arm back and the spear yanked itself out of the door and found its way back into his hand. He threw it again, carefully guiding it to hit the same place as before.

The void colored rod punched the rest of the way through the door. Isaac was sweating from the effort. Shadows lost to iron unless the wielder of said shadows was a madman with too much mana. He let the shadows disperse. “Now he owes me another three hundred gold for making me work.” Isaac commented.

Isaac walked up to the newly formed hole and peered inside. His dark vision ability came on as his eye approached the hole. Inside he saw a safe, a few shelves with scrolls, fancy inks, and woven covered books. There was no gold out in the open much to Isaac’s annoyance. “He better have the damn gold.” He mumbled under his breath. “I don’t see any wards inside.” He told Lenna and took a step back.

Lenna walked up to the door and observed all of the room that she could through the small hole. “I don’t either.” She affirmed.

“Good. I’ll teleport in then and open it from the inside.” Isaac told her and put his hand on her shoulder.

Lenna pulled back but shook her head. “He is a wizard.” She reminded him.

Isaac shrugged. “He didn’t seem like a high level one.”

“Poison bubble.” Was her response.

Isaac cringed. “Fine. I’ll have my familiar handle it.” He told her.

Lenna raised an eyebrow even though Isaac couldn’t see her face. “As you wish.” She told him and backed off. Using Kahtesh there seemed to be a good way to lose the element of surprise when they needed him the most.

Isaac put his hand over the hole and focused. He started to pull on Kahtesh to get him out of his shadow. When the lake of void started to form he mentally directed it into the hole and out on the floor inside the locked room. Isaac felt the void open up and Kahtesh pulled himself the rest of the way out of it. The little bone dragon stretched, like Isaac had told him too whenever he was summoned to make him seem more alive, and looked through the door at Isaac.

‘There should be a metal stick right here.’ Isaac told Kahtesh mentally and put his hand on the door handle on their side of the door. ‘Press the part of it that isn’t touching the door downwards.’

The little dragon did as he was told but the lever wouldn’t budge. The mortals all heard claws tapping on stone and then scraping on metal. Kahtesh tried to bite the handle to pull it down with a better grip but it still refused to move. Isaac shook his head. ‘New plan. Line yourself up so you can fire a lightning bolt right here.’ Isaac directed and poked the part of the door in between the lock and the deadbolt.

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Kahtesh took a step back and looked up at it. He was only a few inches lower than the lock as the owner of said lock was only four feet six inches tall. ‘Make the bolt fly parallel to the floor and wait until I tell you to fire.’ The little dragon did as he was told and waited. Isaac nodded and stepped to the side. Lenna did so as well.

The Madam’s eyes went wide when she realized that the pair were getting out of the way of something and she all but jumped into the wall that she pressed herself against. Luckily for her she was out of the way of Kahtesh’s signature attack.

‘Go ahead.’ Isaac directed and turned his face away from the lock. A loud crack resounded. The metal door muffled it slightly but it still left their ears ringing in such a tight corridor. Kahtesh’s lightning punched into the door. The magical enchantments tried desperately to fight against the powerful lightning but all they could do was make it worse. In slowing the lightning bolt it gave it more time to heat up the metal.

A small lightning sprite zapped out of the door. The lock and its connection to the deadbolt were molten. ‘Hide.’ Isaac directed Kahtesh. He gave Lenna a nod and she took a step back before running shoulder first into the door. The door opened inwards to keep the hinges hidden from the outside so any potential burglar wouldn’t be able to simply take the door off the hinges to get inside. Lenna’s full weight crashed into the door and the whole thing shifted. She backed up and tried again. This time lock remnants gave out and the door flew open.

Isaac had meanwhile sent Kahtesh back to bed in his shadow through the door in order to continue to hide his true nature. Once Lenna was inside a glow stone lit up, bathing the room in a bluish white light. There was a torch on a sconce and a few candles but none of them were lit. Isaac followed Lenna inside. “Thanks.” He told her.

Lenna gave him a bow and replied: “It’s my honor to serve my Lord.” Lenna was laying it on too thick for Isaac’s taste. He didn’t really like her active subservience at all and it was getting to be too much for him. She was his equal in his eyes and even though it was an act, her acting like little more than a servant just didn’t sit right with him. It wasn’t the ‘my Lord’ thing that got to him but the ‘it’s my honor to serve’ part that was the problem.

“Now, where is the gold?” Isaac asked and strode over to the safe. The safe was a small, two foot by two foot by two foot cube with a dial lock and a thick lever as a handle. This lock was bound to be even harder to pick, if either of them knew how, but Isaac had another idea. His shadows were strong, maybe even stronger than little internal lock components.

“That looks too small for the gold.” Lenna whispered with a frown. She looked around but there didn’t seem to be anywhere else that it could be. “Dimensional storage?”

Isaac shrugged. “Only one way to find out.” He put his fingers on the safe. Each finger making a point of a star around the dial. He focused his shadows into the lock and worked to fill every internal space with them. He had made them as solid as possible and could only hope that it was enough. The shadows poured out of and around the lock and into his hand. He then made a long lever to help him try to twist the internals into pieces.

Lenna set down another book on the book shelf. The bookshelf was real as far as she could tell. She expected to find a secret closet or compartment somewhere in the room but had found nothing. She turned in time to see Isaac stand up with the shadow lever in his hands. She walked over and set her hand on it. Isaac looked at her and gave her a nod. They both grabbed on with both hands and pulled.

Isaac was pulling so hard with both his body and mind that he started to get a headache. Lenna’s muscles bulged in her armor. The shadows started to bend. “Stop… stop.” Isaac told her. “The lock is too strong.”

They stopped and Isaac leaned on the wall panting. Lenna looked down at the safe with a frown. “I could burn it open.” Lenna offered. She had only regained a little bit of mana but she hoped it would be enough to melt the lock.

Isaac shook his head. “He probably has the deeds to all his properties in there.” He took another deep breath, continuing to get his breathing back under control. “They might be ruined and I want what he owes.”

Lenna nodded in understanding. “I could hit him with it.” She continued offering suggestions. This one got a laugh out of Isaac who didn’t really take it as seriously as Lenna had meant it.

“No.” Isaac chuckled. “He’d probably die.” He sighed and looked around.

Lenna followed his gaze and then her eyes shot to one of the shelves piled high with scrolls. She walked over and started rooting through them. Isaac walked over to her and gave her a questioning look. “There is a spell that unlocks things.” She explained while looking at scroll after scroll. Most of them were failed attempts at first level spells of varying kinds but none of them were of the one she was looking for.

“Not even he is that stupid.” Isaac told her. He walked over and started looking at the books. The Madam had been watching them the entire time from the doorway. She looked as though she didn’t want to enter for fear of her boss but also didn’t want to let Isaac and Lenna run free inside the dwarf’s private vault, not that she could do much to stop them.

Isaac was on his seventh book when a small slip of paper slid out and drifted down to the ground. He bent down and picked it up. The book was on the history of telling the weather via magic, one that many would find utterly boring, and looked as though it hadn’t been opened in half a century. The paper had some scribbling on it that was slightly faded. Isaac rotated it in his hand until the scribbles started to resemble numbers. He set the book down. “No fucking way.” He whispered.

Lenna walked over and looked at the paper in his hand. “He is indeed, ‘that stupid’.” She commented.

Isaac chuckled and walked over to the safe. “Two times around to the right, stop on twenty five.” He did as the note said with his ear close to the lock. He heard the slightest click and smiled. Reading the next line he continued. “One time around to the left, stop on sixty.” He did so and heard another click. “To the right until seventeen.” A final click. Isaac pushed the lever down and the door came open.

The pair peered into the now open safe and could only frown. It was full of property deeds. “I have no idea how much property is worth.” Isaac complained.

Lenna shook her head. “Me neither.”

Isaac pulled them out and started looking through them. “Most of these are houses which Alice said are a few hundred gold but I don’t want any of these.” He pulled a few of them out. “These are businesses, this one is the brothel.” He said and handed it to Lenna.

Lenna sighed and rolled it up. “It is probably worth the most.”

Isaac sat on the floor and his frown deepened. “But I don’t want to deal with owning it. Or any other business for that matter. It’s all taverns, bars, an inn, and this brothel. He has to be raking in the gold so where is it?”

Lenna’s face took on a deadpan look as she stared at nothing. “The bank.”

“Ugh.” Isaac groaned and threw his hands up. “He has to be conscious for that.”