Chapter 7 Real Power

Lenna was really getting tired of running across town. Going for a run wasn’t the problem. Being too late to catch any of the action was what was pissing her off. First Thomas had already won his fight and she had been a glorified potion delivery service and now she found Lenny sitting behind the clerks desk drumming his fingers impatiently. Once he saw her he stood bolt upright. “Hurry.” Lenny told her and ran towards the back. “The boss already left. Told me to tell you to head in after him.” He explained and showed her the secret passage.

“Thanks.” Lenna replied with a curt nod. “Lock the front door and come with me.” She ordered him and started off down the unlit tunnel. The first thing she saw was a triggered trap. ‘I hate traps.’ She grumbled internally. ‘He better not have gotten himself stuck.’

—

Isaac was starting to get annoyed. The traps started to get less and less precise on their area of effect. Kahtesh ended up falling entirely through the floor on one occasion and Isaac had to unsummon and resummon him to get him out once the floor resealed over top of him. Later the dragon got sandwiched between two stone pistons and now this one had really pissed him off. This time a fireball went off on Kahtesh’s face. The problem was that in a confined space the twenty foot radius had turned into a hundred feet of scorched tunnel and Isaac getting tossed thirty feet forwards, through two tripwires, and then landing on another pressure plate. Isaac had lost most of his shadows in the explosion so his own weight triggered the pressure plate. This time a dozen iron bars dropped in front and behind him effectively trapping a lesser man.

“Gods dammit Kahtesh!” Isaac swore as he stood up and started patting his cloak to put out the small fire. Behind him he saw a poison smoke cloud and a dozen crossbow bolts scattered around the floor of the tunnel. He easily teleported the entire distance back to the dragon and found a mess of bones collapsed on the floor. “Stay still.” He ordered the dragon who had just tried to stand only for his leg to shatter under his own weight. Most of the dragon’s bones were fractured and many of them were shattered entirely. After fixing up Kahtesh Isaac sent the dragon home. “Lenna is going to have to figure out her own way through the rest of the traps.” Isaac thought aloud. “These are getting too risky to trigger on purpose.”

Isaac teleported to the other side of the iron cage and vanished back into his shadowcloak. He had no idea how long he had been walking but it felt like too long. The sound of rushing water got louder and then quieter again multiple times. The sound meant that they were still under the city but the fact that the tunnel had never intersected the sewers was odd at best. The only reason that Isaac could think of for that was if the sewers had been made with the secret passageway in mind. “Either that or someone went through a lot of trouble to redirect the sewers to hide this passage. There’s no way that the sewers conveniently don’t cross this way… unless.” Isaac looked up at the ceiling. He had a vague recollection of something about the city being made in segments. “Each section could have its own sewer system.” He postulated. “That seems incredibly inefficient.” He shrugged. “Whatever, it doesn’t really affect me at all.” He thought aloud and continued on his way.

Isaac had been doing well for a while. He found a few more tripwires and pressure plates but he either didn’t trigger them or triggered them with a throwing knife made of shadows from a few dozen feet away while preparing to teleport. Finally the tunnel made a sharp turn again. This time he could see a door at the other end. Isaac teleported up to the door and stopped. Something felt odd about it and the area behind it. The shadows felt, wrong. “There’s powerful sorcery at work.” Isaac said with a grin quoting a book he had read a few days prior. He pressed down on the door handle but it didn’t budge.

Isaac eventually decided that the only way forward was to pick the lock on the door. He wasn’t about to try and teleport into shadows that felt all fuzzy like when he sat on his foot for too long and the door was the only way forward. He placed his hand against the keyhole in the large iron door. He closed his eyes to get a better feel for his shadows as they seeped into the keyhole. Isaac moved the shadows up into the columns inside the lock and moved the pins up one at a time until they stuck while putting pressure on the lock like he was trying to turn it. Eventually the last pin moved into place and the lock turned. Isaac’s grin turned smug as the lock clicked open.

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Then it hit him. The world started to spin and his shadows fell away from his body and dispersed. He staggered back a step and clutched his head. ‘I need to get out of here.’ He thought and tried to teleport but found that he couldn’t feel the shadows around himself well enough to form a connection. He took two steps back and hit his head on something. Turning around he saw a semitransparent prismatic wall of reality magic blocking his path. He spun around and saw that the same wall of reality was covering the door and was most likely embedded in the walls as well. Isaac felt like he needed to sit down. The dizziness was getting to him. The dizziness wasn’t the worst of it.

Isaac’s mana reserves had been full when the trap was sprung. The shadows that he had been using for his shadowcloak and to pick the lock on the door had been powered by his regeneration not his reserves but even so he was no longer completely full of mana. He was at ninety nine percent. Isaac placed a hand on the reality wall to help him stay balanced, his palm tingled. He took a deep breath and felt almost like he was suffocating. No new mana entered his body. His reserves dropped to ninety eight percent. ‘Shit. My eyes are still drawing power.’ He cursed internally. It was then that the door opened. It swung away from the prismatic shield of reality and revealed a familiar face.

“I never thought the all powerful demigod of darkness would be the rat setting off all the traps in my basement.” The clerk from the smithy said smugly. “I guess not even you are immune to a Globe of Negation.” Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and the streaks of white were reflecting the yellow light from her lantern. She raised the lantern up to be just under eye level. “Any last words, Darkness?” She asked with a grin.

“I’m sure I’ll think of something when the time comes.” Isaac told her and straightened himself up a bit. The world was still spinning but he felt like he was somehow getting used to it. “Let me guess something quick.” He told the woman. She raised an eyebrow in question. “You do know that one of your smiths is a shapechanger right?”

Her grin vanished in an instant. “Who have you told?” She demanded.

It was Isaac’s turn to grin. “Doppelganger, changeling, or drow mage?” He questioned.

“Fairy.” She replied dryly.

Isaac shook his head. “No. It’s a creature of the dark.” He corrected. “You think I wouldn’t notice?”

She swallowed hard. “Who did you tell?” She demanded again.

Isaac shook his head. “Get rid of the globe and I’ll tell you.” He offered.

The woman scoffed. “Like hells.” She replied. “I’ll just kill you now and hope you were too arrogant to tell anyone.” She reached into her pocket for something. “Curse of being too powerful, you get complacent.” She explained and pulled out a small piece of obsidian wrapped in a cloth. She took the obsidian and cut her hand with it. “That’s the trigger in case you were wondering.” She monologued. “Have fun.”

A thick green cloud started to form inside the bubble with Isaac. ‘That bitch!’ Isaac swore internally. ‘She did not just poison bubble me.’ Isaac reached into his Inventory and pulled out a purple vial. He popped the top off and drank the shot glass worth of bitter liquid.

“An antitoxin won’t save you for long.” The woman prodded while watching him stagger towards her.

Isaac placed his hand against the wall and closed his eyes. They were burning from the poison and his nostrils were as well. He was holding his breath but that was only making his dizziness worse. He took a deep breath regardless of the poison. “Let me show you what real power looks like.” He told her. Either this was going to work or he was going to die. It had been a while since he was in any real danger of dying. Usually he had the ability to flee if things got too bad but this time was different. Either his plan was going to work or this would be the end of the self proclaimed demigod of Darkness. ‘Here goes nothing.’

Isaac blazed with power. His reserves were plummeting at a dangerous rate as he poured dark mana into the reality bubble. Power clashed with power. Mana fought against mana. Reality met darkness itself. Raw unaligned dark mana forced itself into the wall of reality magic. The Globe of Negation had made the mana inside of it work on a different frequency than the mana inside Isaac’s body or outside of the globe but that didn’t matter. Mana was mana and mana had its own rules. Once mana was given form rules similar to physics started to take effect. Magic could clash against magic like a sword against a shield. Natural mana would flow through itself. It was truly incorporeal even to itself, at least usually, there were always exceptions. Now Isaac was bringing almost all of his reserves to bear at once and the density alone was causing it to become corporeal. The wall of reality started to ripple.

Ripple after ripple ran across the surface of the bubble. The ripples hit each other and turned into waves as the bubble softened under the superior mana pressure. The surface darkened until it was as black as Isaac’s mana. He felt his reserves hit twenty percent and knew that he had to move immediately. He stabbed his free hand into the wall of reality and it punched part way through. He did the same with his other hand. Both of his hands were turned so their backs were facing each other. He pulled. His hands pressed apart and with them the reality bubble opened up. He pressed and pried as his reserves hit ten percent. The opening was big enough that he could fit through it now. One step through and then the other. He cut his power output as it was about to bottom out. He staggered forwards a step and then took one big inhale as the reality bubble struggled to reform itself behind him. Mana poured into him and he devoured it like a starving man being given a piece of bread. He opened his eyes and grinned.