Chapter 22 Nightmare Into The Past

Isaac’s traveling philosophy was to, in his own words, ‘disappear and walk away from my problems.’ which were, in this case, monsters. Without Aria to heal him if he got himself hurt he decided the best course of action was to let them be if possible. He passed another small group of ogres, two separate packs of three and four shadow-wolves, and a contingent of Ori-Masa who got the drop on him as they were lying in ambush.

Unfortunately for the little fishmen Isaac vanished as soon as they leapt out at him. Isaac tried to make out any weapons of quality on them. They had none. Their spears were all bone and sinew so Isaac left them alone and kept walking. If they didn’t have anything he could sell then he wanted to wait to hunt them until he was getting paid to do it.

After what felt to Isaac like an eternity he found a place that looked good enough to sleep at. Seven or eight feet up there was a ledge that looked to be made from a large chunk of stone falling out of the wall. Isaac climbed up and sat on the ledge. He looked around, seeing nothing except tunnel in each direction, he decided to take a break.

He hammered two pitons into the ceiling about six feet apart. Then he tied his rope to each piton and draped his blanket over it. He laid out his bedroll and used his cloak as a blanket. The reason he didn’t use his cloak as the curtain was because his scent was much stronger on it and he wanted to hide as much of his scent as possible. He knew that hiding it completely was impossible but he hoped it would make enough of a difference.

Sitting in his hiding hole he decided this would be a good time to play with the dragon skull. He took it out of his Inventory and turned it to face him. Looking into its eye sockets he felt like it was staring back. “Here goes nothing.” He said and closed his eyes.

He guided his mana down his arms and into the skull. The skull at first didn’t respond so Isaac pulled some of the mana apart into death and shadow. The death mana was instantly sucked in and Isaac could feel the skull pulling more and more of it out of him. He was about to drop it in order to cut the connection when something made him freeze.

—

Cold. Hungry. Fear. Terror. Darkness. It was all It could feel. It looked around frantically. Only enchanted iron bars met It in each direction. Then, right as despair was threatening to take control, blinding light. The cavern lit up. The cavern had smooth walls and only one exit. That was not what terrified It however.

There, standing not ten feet away was a monster. This monster was more horrifying than anything it had ever seen. The monster had two legs and its fur poured off the monster’s shoulders in weird waves. This was the monster that had stolen It away from its home. Its home wasn’t safe by any means but at least It was free there.

The monster spoke something in the monster’s weird high pitched language and It felt space constrict around It. The monster opened the cage and grabbed It’s mouth pulling it open. The monster poured some disgusting liquid down Its throat. Soon Its entire body locked up from the inside.

The monster dragged It out of Its cage and then out of the small cavern. They arrived in a larger cavern with a raised platform. On that raised platform was a mess of limbs and fur that It recognized. Some of the limbs were from a creature that It loved to hunt because they were tasty and easy to catch.

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The monster said some more weird words and then pulled out a straight claw. It had learned about them from fighting other monsters of this one’s kind. They were sharp and sometimes even cut Its scales. It panicked and tried to thrash. It tried to get away as the monster approached. The claw was raised about Its neck and then was yanked down hard. Pain. Pain was Its thought.

—

Isaac screamed and dropped the skull. His hands went to his neck and he gulped. He breathed heavily. “I’m alive. Okay. What was that?” He asked himself and looked down at the skull. “Was that? Was that how you died? But I killed you? And it definitely wasn’t like that.” Isaac rambled on out loud. His own voice was his only comfort at that moment.

“Actually, didn’t Aria tell me that a Chimera was made from a bunch of different creatures? Like some crazy wizard cut them up and stitched them together with magic or something.” His breathing was slowing down but his mind was still racing. “Maybe, maybe this was how the dragon died. It seemed so small and young. I feel bad for it now.”

His gazes drifted back down towards the skull in his lap. What he saw stunned him. Right in the middle of his chest was a strand of mana that reached out and bore through the dragon skull into where its brain would be. It was only then that he noticed that he was almost out of mana. He had no way of knowing how long that nightmare into the past had taken.

The strand of mana connecting the skull to him didn’t really seem to be draining any mana at the moment. He decided that he had had enough excitement for the day and put the skull back into his Inventory. In his mind the scene kept playing out again and again. The more it looped the more he wanted to find whoever had killed this poor little dragon and carve them into little pieces.

He shook his head and tried to focus on other things. He thought back on his time with Aria, Claus, and Jennie. Remembering the pleasant conversations, the lectures on the new world he was in, learning a card game, and the fun he’d had scaring Aria half to death not once but twice.

Soon the dark mage drifted off to sleep.

—

Isaac awoke to the sound of scratching claws on stone. He stayed silent and tried to figure out what was making the noise. To him it sounded like something was trying to jump up a wall but couldn’t quite make it to the ledge.

He sat bolt upright, narrowly escaping smashing his head into the ceiling, and took a few slow calming breaths. He slowly put on his cloak and then peered down at the ground around the side of his makeshift curtain. Sure enough there were two shadow-wolves taking turns jumping up at his ledge.

“Go away. I was trying to sleep. You could at least wait until I’m up to be obnoxious.” Isaac lectured them. They stopped and stared at him for a second before baring their teeth and growling. “Well if you are gonna stay down there I’m going to pack up. Just wait until I’m done then we can play.”

Isaac carefully put away his bedroll and untied the rope. It took him a bit but he finally got the pitons out and then stored everything in his backpack. He looked over the edge to see the wolves still trying to get up. He thought for a second before coming up with a plan. He retrieved the two pitons he had used earlier. He held one in each hand and then made himself disappear.

He waited at the top of the ledge for just the right time before dropping them both. One was aimed right for one of their throats as they took bites out of the air while trying to reach him. The other was most likely only going to hit the second one on the head.

They both jumped and Isaac released the pitons. His aim and timing were perfect but not for the one he was actually aiming for. A piton went right down the other’s throat and it started gagging and coughing trying to get it out. The first one bit down on the piton that was actually aimed for its throat.

Isaac started for a second, trying to realize how that had happened, and then shook his head to clear it. He climbed down as quickly as he could. His descent was more of a fall with a guiding hand on the wall than anything. He hit the ground hard and fell to his knees. His kneepads did their job and Isaac got to his feet.

He drew his longsword and brought it down hard right as the non gagging one landed from another failed climbing attempt. The blade cut deep. Not quite where he wanted it but close enough to get the job done. The beast fell lifeless at his feet. The second wolf had finally managed to cough up the piton and was looking around frantically.

Isaac took that moment to deal another lethal blow. He cut off his invisibility to save mana and looked around for his pitons. “Well I’m awake now. Time to get a move on I guess.” He said to himself as he stowed his improvised weapons.

Isaac set off once more on his journey to find an actual town. He hoped that the rest of his trip would be less eventful but he had the sneaking suspicion that the craziness was only getting started.