Chapter 46 Stronger Than Ever.
“Isaac?” Lenna spoke to get his attention while they were continuing their trek back to Safeharbor, home.
“Yes.” He replied and glanced at her questioningly.
“What do you feel towards me?” She asked. It was a complex and loaded question. Lenna hadn’t grown up in a place where love was a common feeling nor had she experienced it properly first hand. She knew that she felt something towards Isaac but her feelings were an unknowable tangled mess much like the drider’s nest that was currently tossed into her bottomless bag. She partly wanted to know how Isaac saw love but also she wanted to make sure. She wanted to be completely sure that it wasn’t just a simple attraction. That it was something deeper. “Without flowery speech.”
Isaac almost tripped at the question but after her follow up he smiled contentedly. “Alright.” Their eyes met. “I’ll try.”
Lenna nodded once. “Thank you.”
Isaac took a deep breath and swallowed while trying to get his thoughts and words in order. “I feel a need to be as close to you as I can be. I feel a desire to see you smile. I know that it is stupid but whenever you talk to someone else or another guy looks at you, I feel this compulsion to step between you. Being near you makes me feel warm but being away makes me feel cold, like something is missing.” He thought about the ‘missing’ feeling a bit longer. “It is much like if you are used to wearing a pendant and then one day it is gone.” He nodded in agreement to his own analogy. “I find myself talking less to myself and more to you even when I’m alone, if that makes any sense. It’s like I say it expecting you to hear even if you aren’t there.”
Isaac’s eyes searched Lenna’s face for a long moment. She nodded almost absently while processing Isaac’s words. “I think, I think I understand.” She replied.
“Those flowery words are necessary sometimes.” He commented. “Your face brightens the room. Not literally of course but in my mind’s eye you almost glow when I look at you sometimes. Those memories of your smiling face or you laughing always seem brighter than I know they are.” Isaac elbowed her gently. “I know I’m selfish so I’ll just come out and say it. I want you to be happy with me. Yes, I want you to be happy… but if you ever looked at someone how I want you to look at me I doubt they’d survive the night.” Isaac was possessive. He usually tried to hide it somewhat but this was a true heart to heart so he wasn’t going to hold anything back. His lack of care towards those he didn’t specifically like didn’t help his previous statement sound any less psychotic.
Lenna nodded along. She had seen through him long ago. She also knew that if she wanted to have a relationship with him then it was something she would have to deal with. As things currently were she didn’t have any male friends to worry about Isaac’s… nature… but she would have to be wary in the future about getting close to any men. She had read enough romance novels to know that Isaac coming in at the wrong time and catching just the wrong look in her eyes could spell disaster even if there wasn’t anything going on. If she was being honest with herself it was comforting in a way. She knew that he would always be there whenever she needed him as he wouldn’t ever be far enough removed to let anyone else try to have her. For normal people in a normal relationship this probably wasn’t healthy but neither of them were what anyone would call normal.
“So, if you don’t choose me, you should…” Isaac felt his heart grow tight with what he was about to say. He felt his throat start to itch and breathing felt a little harder. “leave my service, first.”
Lenna could feel the weight of what Isaac had just told her like a backpack full of bricks. He was willing to let her go in order for her to be happy but he wouldn’t be able to bear her being happy next to him. She would have to choose one day. Either be happy with him or leave him and be happy somewhere else. The only way for her to not have to choose would be to wait until Isaac lived out his natural life which, if he became a real demigod once he hit level twenty, might not ever happen. He had left her with a lot to unpack and a lot to meditate on. She doubted if she’d be able to rest properly for a while but it was worth it. Hearing Isaac’s true feelings, without any real attempts at flirting mixed in, was worth a few restless nights.
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The pair had finally returned to Safeharbor late into the day. They only had a few more hours before many of the shops closed up for the day so they decided to swing by the Guild Hall right away. “Hey Alice.” Isaac greeted the receptionist in the usual way.
The small woman looked up from her meal, she was eating at her desk as it was around dinner time, she smiled through a mouthful of food. She took a moment to swallow before greeting them in return. “Hi. Finished with the drider bounty already?” She asked.
Isaac nodded. “It’s going to be messy and expensive so we’ll get something to eat too and then the three of us can sort it out. Yeah?” He suggested.
Alice nodded. “That works.” She replied and went back to digging in. A few minutes later the group found themselves in a back room a bit smaller than where they usually dumped their booty. The room was completely empty which was why Alice had chosen it. This way they could just dump everything on the floor and sort it out slowly.
Lenna started pulling out everything that she knew of that was in the bottomless bag and handed it to Isaac who had decided to sit down against the wall. Each thing he would stash in his Inventory which quickly reached an uncomfortable weight. Once everything that was theirs was out of the bag Lenna, with the help of her boot, turned it inside out. The remaining contents were shunted out across the room and wound up in a heap that was even more tangled than when they had stuffed it all in to begin with.
Alice staggered back a step. “Is… is all that drider silk?” She whispered.
“Yes.” Isaac replied and started passing things back to Lenna. He had over a hundred extra pounds in his Inventory that he didn’t want to be there. “Unraveling it was not realistic.” He explained.
Alice nodded slowly and reached for one of the spools that they had made. She ran her hand over it like it was a national treasure. She turned her head slowly to look at them. “No one, and I mean no one, can know about this outside of the Guild Master and me.” She told them. “Our security is good.” She panned her gaze across the king’s ransom that was in the room and shook her head slowly. “Not good enough to keep the type of thief that would go after this out, though.”
“Got it.” Isaac replied.
“Understood.” Lenna replied at the same time.
Alice nodded in acknowledgement of their understanding. “Good. We are going to have to call in a weaver or someone with the right magic for this. Maybe both. I don’t foresee you getting paid for this quickly. Remember there is a ten percent cut for the guild if we do take care of everything.” She turned and locked eyes with Isaac. “Ten percent of this is going to be a massive amount, Isaac. It might be cheaper for you to figure this out yourself.” She advised.
Alice’s honesty was a breath of fresh air and Isaac decided to reward it. Not because he was too lazy to figure it all out himself. Nope. Not at all. “That’s fine. I trust your work and connections.” He told her with a smile.
Alice’s eyes got a little wider and she swallowed. “Alright.” She nodded more to herself than to anyone else. “I’ll get to work.” And get to work she did. She had a caster that was still in the guild use an Identify scroll on the drider’s head for authenticity and then started tracking down contacts. Isaac and Lenna would get their bounty payout sent directly to their account the next day but the silk needed to be untangled and put onto real spools with their lengths listed and cataloged before Alice could find a good buyer. The entire process would take weeks by her estimations. Isaac and Alice had decided that it would be best to leave Kahtesh in the room with all the silk as an extra level of protection just in case any information about it got out.
Isaac decided to keep the skull of the drider as his connection to it was far stronger than it had been to anything else’s skull. He knew that this creature had been powerful on its own and that was why he felt such a strong connection to it. The stronger the creature, the stronger the connection. If the creature was dark in the first place then even more so. He wasn’t sure if he had enough power to turn Shaeo into something like Kahtesh and even if he could he wasn’t sure if he could have them both or not. Shaeo would be the logical choice as the power that she wielded in life was enough to push all three of them so she was bound to make a good familiar. The problem wasn’t which one would be more effective, it was which one Isaac wanted. Kahtesh had grown on him. He had always liked the little dragon but the more time they spent together the more Isaac thought of him like a strange dog and less like a bone golem familiar hybrid.
Isaac would be lacking some protection for the time being with Kahtesh guarding the silk but making sure his fortune wouldn’t suddenly vanish overnight was worth it. The pair finally staggered back into the Celestial Dawn just as Celeste was closing the bar. “You’re back.” Celeste greeted them with a smile.
“More tired and stronger than ever.” Isaac replied with a yawn. He was looking forward to his soft bed.
Celeste chuckled. “Sleep well dears.” She bid them as farewell once they had started ascending the stairs to the second floor.