Chapter 73 Getting Old.
“That, was, awesome!” Alexis yelled in a whisper upon the conclusion of Isaac and Fable’s spar.
“Did Fable actually lose?!” Mark questioned from the edge of his seat. He had met Esk while training in the Glinting Blade’s warrior school after he quit the military. He was not the old man’s apprentice but he had still received some personal instruction from time to time. Seeing Fable lose was just as big a shock for him as it was for Esk.
“They were evenly matched.” Alexander said in a whisper.
“The Glinting Blade really is getting old.” Fina added. “I think we are seeing the beginning of the decline of a legend.”
“It could have gone on forever if my master hadn’t run out of mana.” Esk stated.
“He looks exhausted.” Lenna articulated. “I don’t think Fable could have kept it up for much longer regardless.”
Esk looked over at her and saw her cold calculating gaze focused on his master. He realized that she wasn’t trying to belittle his master in any way but it was more like she was just compiling information on a future target. Esk swallowed hard as he realized that Lenna might be the one to put his master down for good. Oddly enough, there weren’t any hard feelings. Esk had learned something over the course of his journey to platinum. Something that Fable had figuratively beaten into him every time the old man had too much to drink: ‘Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.’ None of them expected to die their final death of old age. That was not a luxury that adventurers often received. One day or another they would fight something that they used to be able to kill but their aging bodies wouldn’t be able to keep up anymore and they would end up as monster food. It was a tale that had been repeated thousands of times by aging adventurers. A tale that would one day be repeated by Fable the Glinting Blade, the greatest spellblade of the thirteenth century, a world renowned hero of countries and continents. A feeling of melancholy pervaded through the young spellblade at his predecessor’s eventual decline into obscurity.
“I should get down there.” Lenna said and rose to her feet. “Isaac can’t die of hypothermia but that doesn’t make it a pleasant experience.” She hopped over the railing down into the arena and walked over to her mate and the man she still hadn’t decided to forgive. Maybe she would forgive him one day but she had centuries to figure that out.
Isaac was brushing frost off of himself when Lenna arrived. Fable had finally managed to stow his longsword after prying it out of his wooden fingers. “You’re left handed aren’t you?” Isaac questioned Fable.
“Yes. Most people assume the opposite.” Fable replied. “With this arm, I can’t exactly cast spells anymore so it became my sword arm.” He added tapping his wooden arm with his good hand.
Isaac nodded. “What kind of magic items do you use?” Isaac seemed to be actually asking Fable for advice in a roundabout kind of way.
“My coat has impact dispersion, cut, and tear resistance as well as a heating and cooling function. My under armor has a wound sealing function and self repair that affects itself, my coat, and my pants which have the same enchantments as my coat.” Fable explained. “I have an Amulet of Survival, Bottomless Bag, and enchanted swords. I prefer to keep things simple if I can.”
“What enchantments do you have on your swords? It was hard to tell with all of the buffs you keep layered on yourself.” Isaac wondered.
“The rapier has seven levels of sharpening and two levels of hardening. If you hadn’t grabbed the guard I would have sliced through your hand.” Fable explained. “The longsword has increased mana conductivity, two levels of sharpening, and five hardening.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Isaac nodded in understanding and appreciation. Fable had the swords tailored to fit his style. The rapier rarely went up against anything that it couldn’t just slice through and he wasn’t strong enough to butcher the blade through normal use. This meant that it needed less hardening enchantments compared to the longsword, which was designed to take the weapon buff he applied to it and survive as much punishment as possible while still being effective on its own. “I’m still having trouble finding good magic items for myself.” Isaac confessed as he put on his Cloak of Shadows. “This is helpful on occasion but it’s mostly just for the aesthetic honestly.”
“The enchantments on my armor are standard for double platinum adventurers.” Fable explained. “They aren’t built for anything specific but they are always useful.”
Isaac nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. I have a set of dragon scale armor coming with impact dispersion and hardening enchantments on it but I didn’t have the money to push it much farther than that.” He confessed.
“That should work well for you until you can get something more… mythical.” Fable added with a smirk. “The chainmail on the inside of my coat is mythril, flexible but strong and silent. Both of my swords are adamantine coated steel.”
Isaac’s eyes got a little wider in surprise. “Are the hardening enchantments even necessary at that point?” Isaac questioned.
Fable nodded. “I didn’t used to think so. I fought a greater gia elemental on Mount Eddenton once and it chewed up my rapier before spitting it out like a hairball.” Fable was smirking at the memory. “It was an adamantine coated blade but I had passed up on hardening enchantments because I thought it was overkill. Adamantine is hard to break but I underestimated the strength of some monsters.”
Isaac nodded in appreciation. “There’s no such thing as too much overkill in our line of work.” He added.
Fable chuckled. “No, there is not.” He agreed.
“Any quirky magic item recommendations?” Isaac asked.
Fable looked over towards Shy. “If you can afford them, with your fighting style, everything Shy owns and then some.” Fable replied before turning back to Isaac. “You have a problem killing ‘dark’ creatures as you put it, yes?”
Isaac shrugged. “I can still fight them like I fought you just now but I can’t just crush them with overwhelming death flames like I could a human.” He explained. Isaac would say that he was less overpowered against dark creatures but he had traded his first life’s memories for power and the twin divinities of reincarnation hadn’t let him down.
“There is a high elven sorcerer blessed by sunlight. I would ask him for a way to deal with those. He is known as the Fate Breaker, Cainen Su’Sol. He was eight hundred years old when I was a boy.” Fable explained. “If anyone has a way to specifically deal with your kind it would be him.”
Isaac nodded in thanks. “You’ve helped a lot, thanks Fable.” Isaac told his senior adventurer.
Fable gave Isaac a genuine light smile for the first time. “I just want one thing in return.” Fable replied. “Wherever you end up, do what you can to protect the innocents around you.”
Isaac was visibly surprised at the pure sincerity coming from Fable. It was so clearly and directly from the older man’s soul that it caught Isaac off guard. It felt like a dying wish from an ancient hero even though Fable should have had another forty to sixty years of life left in his half elven body. Isaac nodded. “I will.” He replied. “I can’t promise anything else though, my methods tend to get bloody.”
Fable nodded. “That’s the most I can reasonably ask for.” He said in return and turned to leave. “Thanks again for the spar, kid.” He told Isaac while walking away.
“Fable is… very different from my first impression of him.” Isaac confessed barely louder than a whisper to Lenna.
Lenna stared after Fable. “Yeah.” She agreed. “Did you enjoy your fight?”
Isaac smirked and nodded. “Yeah. It was a completely different experience to fighting you. Fighting you is more fighting against the feeling of futility as everything I do gets countered before it even happens. Fighting him was like fighting myself, only different.”
“I knew it would be close but I didn’t expect you to be evenly matched.” Lenna replied.
“Limit Break is terrifying.” Isaac told her while they were walking out of the arena. “For that split second he was moving more than twice as fast as me.” Isaac shook his head. “I can’t believe he used to be able to do that twice back to back.”
“It has its limits.” Lenna explained. She had been watching Fable like a hawk every moment that they had been together. “His body still receives the strain from performing those movements. That’s why it’s called Limit Break.”
“Could the strain be healed away if he had a healer babysitting him?” Isaac wondered.
Lenna tilted her head in thought for a moment. “I don’t see why not.”
“So if he had a dedicated healer behind him he could be Limit Breaking every other second.” Isaac surmised.
Lenna stopped walking. “I don’t think I’ve heard of him fighting alongside a healer. Combat healers are rare.”
“He’s traveling with a healer right now isn’t he?” Isaac questioned.
Lenna nodded. “He needed one to bring Eskahno back to life.”
“What if we threw him and his healer at Jallen?” Isaac offered.
Lenna shook her head. “Jallen would kill the healer. Fable wouldn’t be able to stop my uncle from tearing her in half regardless of her level. He’s one of the strongest paladins in the world. Fable might be able to kill him after the fact but fighting my uncle with that strategy would quickly devolve into a pitched battle.” She explained.
“What if I fight him, one on one?” Isaac questioned.
Lenna’s face was impossible to read as she stared at Isaac. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.”