Chapter 27 Your Turn.
“An incomplete demigod.” Isaac replied with irritation in his voice and eyes.
Fen shook his head. “I’d have to see it to believe it.” He retorted with a sly grin. Isaac’s eyes narrowed at the sorcerer. “Fine, fine.” Fen relented and raised his hands placatingly. “So, oh great and mighty Lord of Darkness, what are you going to do with us?”
Isaac stood up and looked around the laboratory. It looked as though a thunderstorm had spawned in the middle of the room, blew a bunch of things over, shot lightning a few times, rained blood and then left again. He looked at Jala once he felt the pulse of mana leave her going in all directions. “How many dispels do you have in you?” He asked.
Jala looked at him thoughtfully. The wide range command had taken a lot out of her magically speaking and her mental state was still trying to catch up to all the insanity that had just gone down. “Twelve, fifteen if you don’t mind carrying me.” She replied.
“How many wards are on our way out?” Isaac questioned.
Jala tapped her finger on her chin in thought and started counting wordlessly. “If they all still function, ninety seven, I think.”
“How much did that all cost?” Isaac asked curiously.
Jala shrugged. “Three to four hundred per ward I believe.” She answered as if that amount of money wasn’t a king’s ransom.
Isaac’s eyes went wide at the project’s budget. “What about everything else in here?”
Jala continued to think and count things up for a moment before she shrugged. “Somewhere between fifteen and thirty thousand more. There isn’t a garrison here so they kept the outpost small.”
“And you said Jallen, it was Jallen right?” Isaac asked.
Lenna nodded but Jala was the one to answer. “Yes, my twin.” She explained.
“Your parents weren’t the best at names were they?” Isaac asked.
Fen chuckled but Jala looked as though she took some offense to the words. “It is customary for female names to end in ‘ah’ sounds and male names to end in ‘en’. Twins are also a one in a billion chance for elves so they weren’t exactly prepared but I think they did a good enough job thank you.”
Isaac was smirking in amusement by the time she finished. “Anyway,” He brought them back on track. “Jallen also paid the L’Vore family for this as well, right?”
Fen answered for her. “A hundred gold a day until the plan succeeds or a thousand days have passed. However long it takes after the thousand days comes out of the L’Vore family coffers.” He explained the deal they had.
“So uncle V’Nova was willing to spend a hundred and fifty thousand gold on this plan to what? Burry Safeharbor in chimera?” Isaac questioned. He just couldn’t see the small odds of success being worth the price in gold.
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Jala nodded. “It might have worked too if someone hadn’t killed my best hunter, thinned out the shadow-wolf pack that I had been gathering, made me rebuild my guard, killed what was supposed to be my trump card, and then wrecked my lab.” She accused.
“Most of that was actually accidental but it’s nice to know that the strange monster movements were your doing.” Isaac replied. “What about the sudden spike in jumping-spiders?”
“I was trying to breed phase widows. I guess that experiment will have to be put on hold due to my sudden new employment.” Jala replied half grumbling.
Isaac looked at Fen with a raised eyebrow. Fen put his hands in the air again. “She’s a loaf short of a full basket.” He nodded. “I know.”
Jala grabbed the nearest broken thing, which happened to be a halved leg bone, that was on the table next to her and whipped it at Fen. Fen easily, almost lazily, swatted it to the side as, even though Jala had noticeably put most of her strength into it. There was very little actual speed or moment accompanying the projectile. “Ass.” She called him but then immediately went back to whatever crazy idea she had been thinking up.
“I guess we are bringing you back to town with us.” Isaac eventually said with a sigh. ‘I don’t trust them enough to leave them to their own devices and maybe I can trade her skills for something of worth from Izen.’ Isaac thought to himself.
Fen gave him an incredulous look. “You are just going to walk two dark elven archmages in through the front gate of a human city that has stood against the V’Nova clan for centuries?” He was obviously quite skeptical of Isaac’s ability to pull off such a feat.
Isaac nodded like it was a simple matter. “Of course.” He replied simply. “I am the Lord of Darkness itself.”
—
A half hour later saw the five man band leaving the laboratory outpost with a bottomless bag full of monster parts, chemicals, alchemical concoctions, notes, and magical burners. Lenna was leading with Jala and Fen side by side in the middle and Kahtesh’s teeth barely two feet behind Fen’s ankle at any given time. Isaac was nowhere to be seen as there was still a fireball ward right outside the entrance. Jala had explained that Kahtesh wouldn’t set off the ward because he was not bipedal. She had designed the wards in such a way to prevent her own chimera or a stray monster from setting off expensive wards.
“Command: Removal: Dispel” Jala said with her hand outstretched towards the fireball rune. The ward quickly faded and Isaac reappeared right next to Lenna.
“How do you do that?” Fen asked. “I used three detection spells to find you and none of them worked. You don’t use a spell chant but I’m sure you have enough mana to brute force the cast anyway.”
Isaac looked at him wearily. “How do you turn into shadows?” He asked.
Fen got the message of an information trade and happily obliged. “I focus my connection to the plane of darkness into my physical body and let my cells and mana pathways absorb all of the dark mana that is flowing through me. It’s still usable but doing so would steadily return me to normal.” He explained. “Your turn.”
Isaac smirked. “It’s not a spell. The only spell I know is the one I stole from you.” He replied smugly.
Fen almost tripped. “H-How?” Was all he could stammer out.
Isaac shook his head. “My turn.” He corrected. “What do you mean by your connection to the plane of darkness?”
Fen’s eyes widened slightly. “You don’t have a connection to the plane of darkness?” He asked but Isaac remained silent. Fen huffed. “Fine, the plane of darkness, much like the other elemental planes, has places in the world where the barrier between Primatia and them is weaker. The Innerworld as a whole is closer to the plane of darkness and that is why dark mana is more potent down here.”
Isaac nodded. “I think I understand. All this other planes of existence stuff is a bit over my head but I think I have enough to get by for now.” He confessed. “I don’t need a connection to the plane of darkness as dark mana bends to my will by both its and my nature. I was made to do as I pleased with it.”
Fen and Jala both latched on to one key word. “Made?” They both asked in unison.
Jala had to stop to cast a dispel on herself as the wards were all bombarding her with useless information as the person who was setting them all off was right in front of her. Every now and then Isaac would have to disappear because there was a violent spell stored in one of the wards so Jala would dispel those personally as well. This was one such time so their conversation was put on hold for a minute until her job was done and Isaac could reappear.
“How many shadow spells do you know and do you know how to modify them?” Isaac asked as he reappeared.
Fen thought for a moment. “I know shadowblade, orb of shadows, shadowbind, shadowstep and detect light. To answer your second question, no, I do not know how to modify them.” He replied. “Now for our question, made?”
Isaac shook his head. “All I will say is that this is not my original body nor did I have a choice in my mana alignment.”
“That’s not very helpful.” Jala replied disappointedly.
“If it makes you feel any better, your husband’s inability to tweak spells is also not very helpful.” Isaac offered.
Jala shook her head. “So, boss, what will we be doing when we get to your human city?” She asked with nervousness that was only mostly buried under forced neutrality.
“We’ll find out when we get there.” Isaac replied with a smirk. “But don’t worry, I’ll make sure it has at least something to do with your specific skill set.” He reassured her.
“That’s not very reassuring if I am being honest with you.” Jala replied casually. Despite what she said Isaac could hear the nervousness had decreased a bit, at least the bit that was leaking out through her voice anyway.