Chapter 13 Unfun.

Lenna could feel Isaac’s frown from two feet away. His eccentricities had been stifled as he did not have the first word. Gio had started too quickly. He truly was an awful villain. How was Isaac supposed to monologue or say something dark to open the confrontation like ‘I’m here to collect.’ or ‘You signed your death warrant.’ when Gio started early. She could barely keep herself from rolling her eyes as she knew exactly what was going on inside Isaac’s head.

Isaac was fuming. Not only was this man two weeks late on making his move but now he spoke out of turn. Everyone knew the ambusher got the first word. It was common courtesy. Even through the thoughts flying through Isaac’s head he noticed some of the ambient mana being drawn upwards. His eyes followed what he felt until they found what looked like a crystal ball set into the ceiling. “You had me assassinated.” Isaac spoke deeply and darkly, his general irritation towards Gio seeped through. Gio looked at him quizzically and went to speak but Isaac cut him off. “Lenna died. A knife through the heart.”

Gio took his moment to say what was on his mind. “If you are here then you weren’t assassinated.” He spoke calmly.

Isaac’s eye twitched. ‘Damn he pisses me off.’ Isaac thought to himself. He took a step forward and Lenna joined him. The void opened up behind him and Kahtesh crawled out lazily. The dragon stretched and then moved to Isaac’s free side. Kahtesh was still a little behind him so he peaked his little bone dragon head out around Isaac’s side to get a clear line of sight towards his master’s enemy.

Gio took the silence as an opportunity to keep talking. “What proof do you have that it was me? You’ve no doubt made plenty of other enemies.”

“I can feel it, in your heart.” Isaac lied with enough dark conviction to make it almost true. “What are your last words before you meet the reaper?” Isaac asked, giving the man the common courtesy that he had withheld from Isaac by speaking out of turn.

Gio shook his head and drew his sword from his hip. “I did what was right for this country. You do not belong here. Go back to where you came, devil.”

“Devil? That’s insulting.” Isaac replied and appeared behind Gio standing in the larger man’s shadow.

Gio spun, leading with his elbow, sweeping his sword behind him. He knew that there was only one place Isaac would go. Isaac vanished again and walked out from behind Lenna. “Be seen my conviction,” Gio started.

“Let my flames” Lenna began. Kahtesh opened his mouth and started to charge.

The door flew open and slammed against the inside wall. Silence reigned for one whole second before a thunderclap resounded. The lighting bolt was mostly dispersed off of the large paladin’s armor but enough got through that he was clearly in pain. Gio did not make a sound but visibly grit his teeth as his own healing washed away any lingering damage.

Isaac turned slowly to see who had burst in during their conflict’s climax and was not amused by what he saw. Sera Von Arbencroft stood in the doorway with a maid and the Guard Captain, Tim, flanking her. The room was silent again. No one dared to breathe.

“Awe, it’s cute.” Sera said and tilted her head while looking at Kahtesh.

“What?” Isaac, Tim, and Gio all said at the same time. The maid seemed used to Sera being odd and Lenna, after seeing who had arrived, had her full attention locked onto Gio.

“The tension is so thick I could cut it with a knife.” Sera spoke again, rapidly changing topics.

“I was about to kill him.” Isaac replied, his voice was still almost as deep as he could make it, his unamusement was clear in his voice.

“Good thing I got here in time then.” Sera responded cheerily. “I would like you to reconsider.”

Isaac was silent as he stared at her for a moment. “No.” He replied and turned back to face Gio. “Kahtesh, eat him.”

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Sera huffed as the bone dragon crouched low. Power built in the little dragon’s lightning rune as he prepared to pounce. Gio started his spell again. Lenna lunged forwards. Kahtesh launched himself at Gio. It looked as though the dragon would arrive before Lenna so Gio turned slightly to intercept him with his sword while he tried to finish his spell.

Gio’s sword helped eat up some of the lightning bolt that flew from Kahtesh’s mouth just before his sword would have met the dragon’s face. He finished his spell through gritted teeth even as Kahtesh clamped down on his sword. “, burn like the sun.”

A near blinding light erupted from just in front of and above Gio. Lenna Finished her attack with her eyes closed. Her flame covered sword dug deep into Gio pauldron. His own sword blazed with radiant power in an attempt to burn the dragon off of it. Isaac’s shadows started to smoke and steam as the summoned orb of radiating sunlight tried to banish the shadows. Isaac instinctively shielded his eyes. He was forced to see in color as the shadows in his eyes were burned away.

Gio was brought to a knee from the trio of impacts in rapid succession. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment as everyone tried to get their bearings. Isaac quickly realized that Kahtesh’s face was melting under the blazing radiance of Gio’s sword. ‘Shit. Kahtesh, jump back.’ Isaac ordered. Lenna, instead of withdrawing her sword and striking again, decided to double down. She continued pouring mana and aura into her sword as she tried to force it through Gio’s shoulder.

Gio hissed in pain even as the dragon let go of his sword. Isaac appeared so close behind him that Gio felt like a demon was trying to become his cape. “You’ve made this unfun.” Isaac told the man darkly as he positioned his hands on either side of the paladin’s head.

“Go back to the hells.” Gio spat and Isaac poured proverbial buckets of death flames out of his hands and into Gio’s head. For a long few seconds Gio’s healing mana rebelled against the intruding tsunami of pure death. All the mana in the paladin’s body was gone before his skull turned to dust. Lenna’s sword was ninety percent of the way through his shoulder before the blinding light went out allowing her to see.

Sera was still standing in the doorway, now with her arms crossed, and she shook her head disappointedly. “This is going to cause problems for you.” She told her favorite guests.

Isaac didn’t respond but simply walked over to the poor dragon with a half melted face. His skull looked droopy like how lava dried. Most of his teeth were gone. He looked pitiful. Isaac’s Lord of Darkness persona crumbled at the sight of his little friend. He knelt down in front of the dragon and released his shadows to allow them to fade away. “Awe, you poor baby. Look what he did to you.” Isaac said to the little dragon like he was talking to a newborn puppy.

Lenna kicked Gio’s corpse off of her sword and turned to watch the spectacle. ‘No one who sees that will ever be afraid of him.’ She thought to herself.

Isaac cradled the lower jaw of his dragon in his hands and then blasted enough death mana into the dragon’s head to turn an average guard to dust. Kahtesh’s face and teeth started to reform and after a few seconds he was completely back to normal. Lenna was at their side by then and held her hand out to Isaac. Isaac took it and she helped him rise back into a standing position. “That’s not…” Her voice trailed off. “the rag?”

Isaac raised an eyebrow in question before he realized what she meant. He pulled her self cleaning rag out of his Inventory and handed it to her while scratching the back of his head absently. “Oh.” He replied.

Lenna shook her head and cleaned her sword. Sera tapped her foot. “There are other people here.” She told them indignantly.

Isaac finally gave her the time of day. “Sera,” Isaac began. “I know that killing him will get your king involved or at least curious about us.” He shrugged and pointed to the ceiling. “He probably already knows.”

Sera looked up and saw the crystal ball embedded in the ceiling. She sighed. “Sir Gio planned for this it seems.”

“Gio knew that if the assassination attempt failed I would kill him. He set up what I am assuming to be either a recording device or a scrying tool of some kind ahead of time so the king or someone else who’s important could see his last moments.” Isaac explained. “All of this is according to both of our plans. What Gio didn’t realize is that I don’t care if the king knows we are here. Either he will let us stay here in peace or he will have to try to remove us.” Isaac took a breath to think about how to word his next thought. “I believe your king, or at least his advisors, are smart men. If they are then they will sweep this event under the rug and pretend nothing happened. As long as Lenna and I continue to cooperate with you and Izen all is well. Gio picked a fight he couldn’t win and died for it. That is all.”

Sera shook her head. “You couldn’t have let him live? Maybe taken an arm or something?” She asked.

Isaac shook his head. “I can’t respond with less darkness than I received.” He worded what he meant in a misleading and convoluted way to get the understanding he wanted even if it wasn't the correct one. What Isaac really meant was: ‘It doesn’t feel right to not hit back harder. An eye for both eyes. One tooth for two.’ Isaac could let things go. There wasn’t some law of nature preventing him from doing so but if he did that then he would feel like he let someone walk all over him.

Sera sighed again. “It’s far too early for all of this. Join us for breakfast?” She asked.

Isaac shook his head. “No, we snuck in here, we need to sneak back into our room in the Dawn and then come out as if nothing happened. If anyone sees us leaving here on the same day that the Magistrate is found dead it will cause a riot.” He explained.

Sera nodded in agreement. “Can you make it back? The morning rush is starting.”

“We’ll make do.” Isaac told her and then looked down at Kahtesh. “Go back to sleep.” He directed the little dragon who curled up in a ball on the ground before sinking into the void that opened up beneath him.

Sera watched the dragon with a mixture of fascination, awe, and surprise as he was swallowed up by pure blackness that simply faded away once he was gone. “Has it always been there?” She asked curiously.

Isaac smirked. “Maybe he has, maybe he hasn’t.” He told her and then looked at the two who had accompanied her. “Remember, you can at most have suspicions that we killed him. You didn’t see us here.”

The maid could have been a statue as she hadn’t so much as twitched since their arrival but Tim looked to Sera for guidance. She nodded. “As he says, Tim, we must hide this information from the public for a while.”

Tim nodded. “As you say.” He said to both Isaac and Sera.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have an illusion to finish weaving.” Isaac told Sera and grabbed onto Lenna’s shoulder.

Sera nodded and stepped to the side so she was no longer blocking the doorway and the pair of intruders vanished. Sera stared at the corpse of the Magistrate who had served them for a decade and sighed. “I’m sorry Gio. I tried to warn you. I can only hope that your replacement has a bit more of an open mind.”