Chapter 59 From The Rooftops
By the time The Reaper left there was quite the crowd. He had appeared around the time when most people were on their way to work or on their way home. The streets were busy but Safeharbor’s streets were never crowded. Even so, by the time the conversation was over, more than a hundred people had seen the being responsible for taking souls from the mortal realm to the afterlife having a conversation with Isaac. Many impressions were left on the witnesses at that time. One was that Isaac hadn’t bowed nor even nodded in greeting to The Reaper, proving that Isaac bore no servitude to the deity. Another was how casually Isaac had acted and talked during their interaction, even going as far as trying to extort a boon from The Reaper himself. Finally, as heard by only the closest few within earshot, Isaac had used the personage of The Boatman in the past and The Reaper hadn’t even seemed to mind.
Isaac only noticed the crowd of onlookers after a moment of contemplation and panned his gaze over those who had stopped in their tracks on their way to or from work. He was met with differing reactions. Some dumbfounded stares, some people simply looked away and tried to continue on as if they hadn’t seen anything, a few rubbed their eyes as if they had been imagining the entire thing, and a few even collapsed under his gaze.
Isaac turned to look at Lenna who was blinking quickly like her brain was trying to catch up with what had just happened. “Lenna?” Isaac asked to get her attention.
“Y-Yes?” Lenna replied and blinked herself out of her own thoughts and stupor.
“Any thoughts on fulfilling the old skeleton’s request?” He asked her.
“Uh, um, say something at the Guild Hall?” She offered after stammering for a moment. Rarely had she been taken so completely off guard. In fact Lenna could only think of a very select handful of times that she had been that surprised by anything before.
“The strange part is that I couldn’t feel him at all.” Isaac said with a frown and furrowed brows.
“What do you mean?” Lenna asked.
“I could see him, I knew that he was there, but I didn’t feel anything with my Polarity Sense.” Isaac explained and his frown only deepened. “He should have been the most powerful dark being I could have felt short of maybe The Queen of Shadows.” He shook his head. “Even then that would only be because she is connected to the entire plane of darkness.” He shook his head again.
“I felt him.” Lenna replied. Isaac’s frown turned back to an almost neutral expression and he raised an eyebrow at her. “He felt like he was made of your death flames. Though not very much of them.”
Isaac sighed. “I feel like the questions that can only be answered by a knowledge deity just keep increasing.” He shook his head to clear it. “Well, let’s go to the guild I guess.” He told her and led the way.
By the time Isaac and Lenna arrived at the Guild Hall the news had already reached it. When they walked in, Alice’s eyes grew wider than saucers. “Hey Alice.” Isaac greeted her normally and approached her desk. She didn’t respond as it seemed she was still in shock of what she had only just been told by one of the adventurers in the tavern section of the Guild Hall. “Alice?” Isaac said, trying to break her out of her state. “Alice, I need to make an announcement to the guild.” Still nothing. He waved his hand in front of her face. “Hello, Ear…” He clutched his head in pain. “Ow… This sucks. I don’t even do it on purpose.”
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That seemed to snap Alice out of her blank state. “Isaac? Isaac, what’s wrong?” She asked, concerned.
Isaac shook his head and tried to soothe it by running some of his death flames through it. It didn’t help. “Nothing.” He replied. “I’m fine. I need to make an announcement to the guild.” He explained again. “It has come to my attention that some people seem to think that I am a warlock to The Reaper. That needs to change. Also I don’t know who thinks I’m an avatar to him but I guarantee that he wouldn’t make an avatar this handsome or charismatic.”
“Oh, uh, um, okay?” Alice stammered. She really hadn’t been trained for something like this. This was, as the saying goes, ‘way over her pay grade’. “I can say something to the Guild Master.” She offered. “Maybe put up a sign on the bounty board?”
Isaac nodded. “Both of those should do.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what he expected me to do but that I’m not going to yell it from the rooftops like some lunatic.” He said more to himself than to her.
Alice nodded slowly. “Okay…” She really had no idea how to respond.
“Well, we are here anyway so, any new interesting bounties?” He asked.
Alice shook her head. “No. Same ones as yesterday. The intown bounties have been rotating out quickly enough but outside of the city has been quiet. The Ori-Masa you mentioned haven’t gotten close enough to cause any problems so the guys at the top said to leave them be.” She explained.
Isaac nodded. “Spiders it is.”
Lenna sighed. “I would like some variety every now and then.” She commented.
“I hope you never say that about me.” Isaac replied naturally like he hadn’t even thought about it, the words had simply said themselves without his input.
Lenna just looked at him. “That. Will. Never. Happen.” She replied seriously.
Isaac turned to see the serious look on her face. He smiled awkwardly. “Likewise.” He replied. His voice seemed to jump up an octave between the beginning and end of the word.
“Good.” Lenna replied with the same serious look and tone.
Isaac nodded slowly and then turned back to Alice. “We’re just going to go kill more spiders until something interesting shows up.” He told the little receptionist.
“Okay.” Alice replied with wide eyes looking back and forth between Isaac and Lenna. “Did you two finally, you know?” She asked quietly.
Isaac grinned and winked at her. “Perhaps.” He replied and turned around. Lenna followed him as he left the Guild Hall. A slack jawed Alice stared after them. Too many things had happened and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
The next few days were boring for the pair. A bounty paper was put up that simply explained that Isaac was not an avatar of The Reaper nor was he a warlock to the deity. The Reaper was not a god and thus he couldn’t have clerics but he was a powerful enough being to bestow boons and have warlocks. A few death cults had shown up over the many millennia that mortals had existed but not only did he dislike such groups killing in his name but he had even called in a favor to have one of them smited by another god because they had gotten out of hand. There was a reason that he had never had a warlock. Mortals simply weren’t trustworthy with the power over souls’ passage between realms.
Between word of mouth and the paper on the bounty board, word finally spread that Isaac was not directly connected to The Reaper. No one really knew how to deal with Isaac for a while after the incident. The reactions to his presence were a mix between pretending, poorly, that it didn’t happen, reverence to some degree, or fear. Honestly it was getting annoying but Isaac knew that he would just have to deal with it until people went back to normal. The worst part was that the plan he was thinking up to play up Lenna’s power in front of everyone was completely derailed by the incident.
A few days passed like this with Alice handling everything with the drider silk from the weaver and the combination loom, spuller, and untangling machine to transporting the drider silk from the guild storage to the Jilian Silverstrand’s workshop. Isaac was glad that Alice was handling it because it seemed monotonous and to be mostly busy work but at the same time spiders were getting to be just as monotonous. The pair decided to break up some of the monotony once the Arbencroft ball was only a week away. It was finally time for Isaac to learn the sword dance, as well as how to dance in general.