Chapter 104 Just Jinxed Us.
Isaac and Lenna had taken the deal they were offered and spent the next two days going in between the Celestial Dawn, the arena, the library, and the Guild Hall. Finally after Isaac had finished his fourth book since their grounding Edward walked into the guild library. “I have bad news. We’re going looking for Azazel. His guild card disconnected.”
“What do you mean it disconnected?” Isaac asked and closed his book after marking his spot.
“All of your badges have a matched pair. When something happens to one of them the other will lose connection and the magic will fade. Either his badge is destroyed or he is dead as they are linked to your mana signature.” Edward explained.
Isaac tilted his head as he stood up. “Ours weren’t attuned to us.” He stated.
Edward nodded in affirmation. “It’s a complex ritual that requires Identify to be cast on you. Basically it uses the Identify to save an imprint of you on the badge. The more you level up, the weaker the connection will be and the badges will visibly fade. Usually after three levels or so the ritual would need to be done again.” He explained.
Isaac nodded in understanding. “Makes sense from what I’ve read about magic.” He commented. “So something happened to either his card or him so we need to figure out who did it, with what, where he got in a fight, and how they found him in the first place right?”
Edward raised an eyebrow at Isaac’s immediate willingness to go look for someone he didn’t know who had probably died tracking down something that Isaac had previously not wanted to tangle with. “You have the gist of it.”
Lenna rose from her chair and stretched as well. She put her helmet back on and strapped it in place. Isaac gave her a look that asked if she was ready to go and she gave him a nod. “We’re ready when you are.” Isaac told Edward. They had been ready to go for the last three days. Lenna had managed to put off thinking about the impending danger as she knew that there was nothing that she could do about it but Isaac had always had the feeling of that monster in the back of his mind. He had been distracting himself with books, poorly, in order to keep from going stir crazy.
Isaac pulled his cloak out of his Inventory and buttoned it. Edward gave the pair a nod and turned to leave with the two foreign adventurers in tow. The trio walked down the stairs and towards the exit, not even pausing as they passed Alice’s desk. Alice gave them a nod with a stern look on her face. “Good luck. Be safe. Don’t die.” She bid them as a farewell.
Isaac gave her a smile and shook his head. “We won’t need the luck.”
Lenna gave her a nod and answered: “It won’t be.” She replied to Alice’s comment about safety.
Edward shook his head. “Promises like those are death flags if I’ve ever seen them. You two better not have just jinxed us.”
—
“Either of you two ride?” Edward asked as they approached the gate on the side of Safeharbor facing the path into the spider infested tunnels.
Isaac shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“I did, a century ago.” Lenna replied.
Edward sighed. “I guess we are running.” Edward knew the rough path that Azazel was supposed to take and he knew that trying to get Isaac and Lenna there on horseback would either get them there an hour earlier or an hour later. It was better to go for the idea that would work poorly rather than hope that the pair could pick up horsemanship in fifteen minutes. That wasn’t even taking into account that they wouldn’t be able to go very fast on them anyway as the horses were entirely dependent on their riders for lighting.
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The trio left the safety of the tall walls of Safeharbor and set off into the darkness at a jog. Edward drank a potion of darkvision as they were walking through the checkpoint so none of them needed any torch light to see.
—
An hour and a half later Edward stopped them. “From here he was supposed to mark which way he went on the tunnel walls. Look for an arrow on the right hand side. If the arrow is pointing forwards and up then that is the way he went to go in. If it is pointing forwards and down then that was his path out.”
“Understood.” Lenna replied with a nod, her soldier background kicking in again.
“Let me go first.” Isaac told the other two and moved to the front of the group. His silent footsteps leading them farther down the tunnel. He could feel the creature though it felt weaker than it had before. Either something happened to it post summoning? Creation? He didn’t know. Or something had fought it and managed to weaken it substantially.
Edward fell in next to Lenna. “You feel anything?” He asked Isaac.
Isaac gave him a silent nod while looking around for an arrow. He eventually found one and it was pointing forwards and upwards. He tapped the wall near the arrow and continued on. “It feels weaker.” He whispered.
“Is it close?” Edward asked, his entire being on full alert.
Isaac shook his head. “Not really. We are heading towards it though.” Edward gave him a nod that he couldn’t see but seemed to feel. The trio continued on in silence as time stretched on. One arrow became two, then three, and was soon twelve. Eventually they found it.
“Shit.” Edward cursed as he knelt down next to a served third of Azazel. His right shoulder, collar, and head were still connected to each other but not the rest of his body. The entire area was splattered with dried blood. Looking around one of Azazel’s arms wasn’t accounted for. His body looked like two massive cleavers had tried to turn him into triangles of people meat like how one would cube chicken to be stirfried.
Isaac only glanced at the poor man and tried to find some sign of what kind of creature had done him in. There were a few scuff marks on the tunnel floor and one massive gash in the wall. “Whatever did this was huge and precise.” He commented.
Lenna was inspecting the corpse as a whole when she noticed something. “Only his arm is missing. If it was huge it wasn’t hungry.” She said and picked up one of the rogue’s daggers. It was magically reinforced but looked to be mostly for show as the blade was made in such a way to resemble flowing water.
Edward frowned and took out his map. He marked where they were then stowed it once more. “We’ll bring back what we can on our way back. I want to find what killed him. If it really is weaker than it was before then we can’t pass up this opportunity to end it.”
“Agreed.” Isaac replied. “Did Azazel have any gear that might help?” He asked. Which got a flat look from Edward. “What? You think he wouldn’t want us to use his gear to kill whatever killed him? I know I would.” He turned to look at Lenna. “If something ever kills me for good I want you to beat it to death with a sack of platinum coins for me.”
Lenna held back a laugh well enough that no sound came out but her shoulders visibly bounced. Edward sighed and shook his head. “That has to be the most nobleman thing I have ever heard.” He commented and looked through the bits of Azazel’s gear that were still intact.
Azazel’s bottomless bag was cleaved in two and its contents had been blasted out all over a section of the tunnel. Most of it was camping and climbing gear. There were a few healing potions that unfortunately hadn’t gotten to be used by the poor man. Isaac took one, Lenna took one, and Edward took two. A potion of wallwalking that Isaac took. And enough water and rations to last one person a month at least.
Azazel’s magical dagger was left back in its scabbard as the trio moved on. None of them needed a magical dagger as Edward had, only he knew how many, swords in his scabbard, Lenna had her magical longsword, and Isaac could make a dagger out of shadows that would be more effective than the wave shaped blade.
Another half an hour went by before Isaac stopped. “What’s that?” He whispered back to his companions.
The other two moved to join him and Edward spoke up before Lenna had the chance. “Magical trap. It hasn’t been set off yet.”
Lenna stared at the runes for a long moment. “Fireball.” She whispered.
Isaac’s eyebrows shot up. “In a tunnel?!” He all shouted in a whisper.
Lenna nodded. “We’ll need to get rid of it before we move on.”
Edward reached into his own bottomless bag and pulled out a silver chime with runes engraved and filled in gold all across it. He moved the instrument towards the rune. He flicked the instrument in the direction of the rune and a small pulse of magic went forwards. The magic poured into the rune and corrupted it until the magic rune cracked and started leaking mana out into the air around them.
Isaac watched the entire thing with great interest. Once the chime was put away Isaac asked a question. “How long will it take?”
Edward shrugged. “No idea. Usually you wait ten minutes to be safe but it takes about a minute per spell level. If it was at base level fireball then three minutes. If it was a ninth level fireball I don’t want to walk forwards and get blasted back to the stone age.” He explained.
Isaac nodded before looking at Lenna. “What level do you think?” He asked.
Lenna shrugged. “Just wait until it stops bleeding.” She recommended. As Edward couldn’t feel the mana leaving the rune he just had to wait and hope that he had waited long enough but as Isaac and Lenna could both feel the mana leaking out of the trap all they had to do was wait until the mana bleed stopped.
The trio waited for five minutes before the rune finally stopped leaking mana. The rune noticeably felt different. Before the rune’s mana had blended seamlessly into the ambient mana, now the rune felt like a dead spot. A small piece of space that mana didn’t travel through. The rune was still in effect but it had no power left to activate so its very presence caused the ambient mana to divert around it.
Once it was safe they continued on their quest to find what had killed the lone edgy warlock.