Chapter 66 Dinner
Isaac caught Alice while she was scrambling to copy a location from one map to another. “What’s going on?” Isaac asked with enough of a command in his voice to jerk her attention to him. “We were just about to head out.”
“Emergency quest, the caravan from Ben’s End got ambushed by an army of Ori-Masa.” She looked up to meet his gaze and saw furrowed brows and a frown. “I can only offer a gold bounty on it at most. The caravan is basically empty.” She explained.
“Do you know which adventurers are guarding it?” Isaac questioned. There was a very high possibility that whoever Lua had called his ‘friends’ were on that job. He just needed to make sure before rushing out there.
“Hold on, I have a list.” Alice replied and dug under a pile of maps for a note that she looked to have scribbled herself. “Keith Windright, he’s the wizard who called it in. He’s gold rank. Claus son of Rock, he’s an electrum level warrior. Aria Tr’Bore, she’s a silver rank cleric. Ellem Renald, he’s a silver rank ranger. And the last one is Eric Weston, a silver rank warrior.” She looked up from the note. “There’s a guard contingent with them of twenty men but none of them are over level six. The message from Keith said that there looked to be well over a hundred Ori-Masa. Worst case, you’ll be recovering badges.”
“Map.” Lenna demanded and held out her hand. Alice gave her one and she looked over it. “That’s around forty five miles.” She commented and then looked at Isaac. “Four days’ walk.”
Isaac nodded curtly. “Or a six hour run.” His eyes met hers.
“Run?” Alice asked with wide eyes. “No one can run that fast for that long with a hundred pounds of gear.” She looked at Lenna wide eyed. “Can you?”
Lenna shrugged. “I could but I wouldn’t be in any condition to fight afterward.” She nodded towards Isaac. “Normally.”
“I couldn’t yesterday but now my body and magic are finally aligned. I’ll need to be careful so I don’t push it too hard yet but I’ll be fine.” Isaac replied. His newly converted mana pathways in his toes were still weak but he wasn’t planning on blasting his entire regeneration rate of mana through them so he hoped they would be able to handle the light strain from him preventing fatigue with death flames.
“I’ll join you.” A deep and familiar voice said while approaching on silent steps. The duo turned to see an over six foot tall elvish man with white, brown, and gray hair. His chest was bare but his arms were gauntleted with his signature retractable claws.
“Wo Lu,” Isaac greeted the older man. “I assume you can keep up that pace.”
The elf barbarian nodded. “Yes.” He replied simply.
Alice swallowed hard. “Okay.” She handed Wo Lu a map as well. “Be careful you thr-four, and gods’ speed.” She wished them and started doing whatever paperwork was needed to make and process the caravan rescue bounty. She couldn’t hold back a yawn. “Man, I need sleep.” She grumbled to herself.
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Isaac gave Alice one last nod and then turned to leave. He started stretching while walking towards the door. “No breaks.” He instructed. Once outside he waited for the two to get closer. He poked Lenna in the chest and a trail of death mana connected her chest to Isaac’s finger. He then turned around and touched the center of his back. The thin line of death connected them to keep power flowing into Lenna. “Don’t go between us.” Isaac warned Wo Lu as he coated the connection in shadows to make it disappear and hopefully prevent Wo Lu from accidentally getting decapitated.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” The larger man replied with a grin. Apparently he thought his joke was funny.
“Stay within ten feet.” Isaac told Lenna and she nodded. “Is that enough power? I need to keep enough for myself.”
Lenna nodded again. “It’ll be enough. It won’t save my life but it’ll keep me from getting tired.” She explained.
Isaac closed his eyes and turned the mana that was flowing through his mana pathways into death flames. He felt the rush for the first time. He felt thirty pounds lighter and wide awake. His vision seemed to clear like a fog had lifted. He took a deep breath and felt the cool air enter his lungs. “This is a rush.” He commented. He looked at Wo Lu. “Ready?”
“Yeah.” Wo Lu replied simply.
Isaac grinned at the two of them. “Last one there buys dinner.” He told them and took off in a run.
The trio didn’t stop for the guards, they just flashed their badges while running past. The first hour was empty. The only thing of note was that they went the entire way through the cleared and straightened part of the spider infested tunnels. Once on the other side it opened up into a cavern that was too far across to see the other end. Part of that was because it wasn’t level, upon questioning, Lenna revealed that it was thought to be around eighty by a hundred and fifteen miles in size. It sloped down hard at the beginning but then turned upwards gently before dipping back down.
The team didn’t really go through any of the large cavern and simply skirted its edge until they found another tunnel. That tunnel was the path that the wagons would take to Ben’s End and by extension Outpost Charles. They hadn’t even seen any spiders which was only slightly surprising with the obscene number of them that Isaac and Lenna had killed.
Wo Lu had been keeping pace fine with nothing but his supernatural stamina and giant stride. Isaac needed the death flames running through his system to keep him at the pace that they had set. Lenna could have held it for a bit without the help but running in full armor, with a sword and satchel on her hips, would have caused her to be exhausted by the time they arrived. Kahtesh stayed in Isaac’s shadow until they needed him. The little dragon could have kept pace with them all easily but Lenna’s armor was loud enough, they didn’t need the dragon’s claws to add to the cacophony of clangs and scratches.
The second hour was almost completely empty. Wo Lu had turned into a giant wolf and darted ahead at one point. A moment later Isaac and Lenna caught up just in time to see him rip the head off of a giant snake that had once been around twelve feet long. He turned to look at them as they approached with the snake’s head still in his mouth. He dropped it almost comically before shifting back into his elvish form. “Dinner for later.” He commented and quickly stuffed the whole snake into Lenna’s bottomless bag much to her and Isaac’s amusement. They had brought travel rations but the old wolf seemed to travel as light as possible.
The third hour saw the group blitzing through a small cave spider nest leaving a dozen corpses in their wake. Their pace hadn’t even slowed. The fourth hour was entirely quiet and so was the fifth. Eerily quiet in fact. There had been some signs of violence like dried blood and tufts of fur. Some of it seemed recent but most of it seemed old. It looked like the Ori-Masa had been hunting in the area. The only reason that the team guessed it was the Ori-Masa was because there was no evidence left. The fishmen seemed to like picking up after themselves. They had learned long ago how to use every part of every kill. They drank the blood, ate the meat, made clothes and bedding with the fur and sinew, and made weapons with the teeth and bones.
Things finally livened up after they had covered over forty miles. A small scout team of Ori-Masa hadn’t even had enough time to understand that they were under attack when Wo Lu impacted one so hard that its own ribs turned it into a pincushion. Lenna’s sword quickly tore through one on flight towards another before pinning both corpses to the stone, while Isaac lodged four throwing spikes made of shadows into the last one. The team only slowed enough for Lenna to rip her sword out of the stone wall before continuing their run for the ambushed caravan.
The closer they got the more the tension grew. By the time they were less than a mile away there was only one thing on their minds. A prayer ran through all three of their thoughts simultaneously. “Please let them still be alive.”