Chapter 74 It’s Broken.
Isaac, Lenna, Claus, and Aria were sitting in one of the nearly empty wagons eating their breakfast. No one had slept all night due to the Ori-Masa attack and it was now morning, well, it was morning on the surface. “So it just stopped moving?” Aria asked. She was taking the time to get some of her mana back so she could go back to tending to the wounded. None of them were in any danger of dying from their injuries anymore, at least as long as they stayed still, so she left them so she could eat with her friends.
Isaac nodded. “I just don’t understand why exactly. I get that it decided that we weren’t viable targets anymore but why didn’t it try to go in a different direction or something. It looked like it just short circ-” He clutched his head in pain and groaned. “Why?” He whispered more to Rei and Zei than anyone actually present.
Aria looked at him with concern. “What I really want to know is why that causes you pain.” She told him. “If the memories you were just trying to pull from weren’t there then you shouldn’t have even been able to try and pull from them in the first place. It’s almost like they are locked but still present.” She looked at Isaac questioningly. “Do you think that could be the case?”
Isaac shook his head gently from side to side. “No. The deal was to ‘trade’ them not ‘seal’ them. They shouldn’t be there at all.” He took a drink of water from the waterskin that Lenna offered him. She hadn’t taken off her helmet. No one in the caravan knew that she was a drow and the longer it stayed that way the fewer chances there were for trouble to arise. “It’s causing problems.”
“I wish I could ask them personally.” Aria thought aloud. “I wonder if El’No could ask for me?”
“It still hasn’t moved at all.” Isaac told them, trying to get back on topic. “I wonder if it’s dying or not. It’s really hard to tell. It’s like boiling a frog.”
“Boiling a frog?” Aria asked. “Like slowly making it hotter until the frog dies because it didn’t realize you were cooking it?”
Isaac nodded. “Yeah but like in reverse and about a monster dying off instead of a frog.”
Aria laughed but then froze halfway through the inhale. She sniffed the air a few more times. She leaned forwards and kept sniffing. She turned towards Lenna and only stopped when she was less than a foot away from the other elf’s face. With one last sniff her eyes narrowed at Lenna. “Who are you?” She asked sternly.
“Is that just a thing wood elves can do?” Isaac said. “How can you guys smell that?”
Lenna raised her hand slowly and put it on Aria’s shoulder. “Personal. Space.” She said calmly. Aria didn’t move so Lenna slowly pushed the smaller woman away from her. Aria tried to resist but it was futile. Lenna could have crushed Aria’s shoulder in her hand and the smaller woman wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it.
“Aria.” Isaac addressed her. “Relax and sit back down.”
Aria turned her gaze to Isaac. “Hold on.” She told him and grabbed him by the shoulder. She turned him slightly and pulled the back of his collar down. “You did!” She yelled. “You mated with a dro-” Her voice was cut off by Isaac clamping a hand over her mouth.
“Keep it down.” He yelled in a whisper. He then looked at Lenna. “I know it’s a territory thing but I totally called it.” Isaac had a pair of incisor shaped scars on the back of his neck from a certain someone marking her territory. Elves were very animalistic at times and marking a mate was one such time. Lenna specifically forbade Isaac from healing it with magic so it would scar. He was surprised that Zei’s blessing even allowed it to scar but blessings from divinities always had more to them than what was advertised.
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Aria just stared at him in shock. A moment later Claus started chuckling which eventually turned into a full body laugh that echoed through the cavern. Isaac ran his hand down his face. “Regardless,” Lenna began. “I claimed you. Any other elf females should leave you alone now.” She said the last bit with a pointed look at Aria.
Aria pulled Isaac’s hand off of her mouth and sat back down in a huff. “I wasn’t going after him in the first place, fallen sister.” She spoke the last two words with more bite than Isaac liked.
“Aria.” Isaac spoke in warning. “Her goddess is the reason we showed up. You should be thanking her, not being an ass.”
Aria looked like she had eaten something sour. “Thanks.” She grumbled. Claus had finally calmed down but looked like he was about to start again. He was obviously getting way too much enjoyment out of the whole situation. Isaac still didn’t get Claus’s specific brand of humor. Sometimes he laughed way too much at something that wasn’t even funny and other times it could be the most comical thing and Claus wouldn’t even react.
Lenna nodded in reply to Aria’s thanks. “I’m only here because of Isaac.” She replied. “I don’t need thanks.” There was no hostility in her voice but there was no friendliness either.
Isaac sighed and looked at Claus. “You should have warned me about elvish women being territorial as all hells.” He complained. Claus’s booming laugh began again and Isaac could only cradle his head in his hands.
—
“Ready?” Keith asked Lenna who was standing next to him. Isaac was right behind them and Claus was on standby to grab Keith and make a break for camp if the monster started after them.
Lenna nodded. “Ready.” She agreed. Lenna and Keith then both knelt down so they could see farther behind the ball of flesh. The base of the tunnel was mostly flat so there were gaps under and to the sides of the monster between it and the corners of the walls and floor.
Keith and Lenna started with casting Fireballs as far back and behind the monster as they could before Keith followed up with another wall of fire. Lenna charged the monster with a flaming long spear again. It took a long few moments for the monster to recollect itself and start moving. It tried to roll away but Isaac appeared on the other side of it and conjured a pair of massive shadow pillars that lodged themselves into the ground and against the monster to hold it in place. The monster struggled and struggled until eventually Isaac had to teleport back over to Lenna because he was about to run out of mana.
The ball that rolled away left behind the chitin rings and most of the bones. It was only as tall as Isaac but it had hundreds of bone spikes sticking out of it making it clank against the stone as it rolled away. “Damn.” Isaac swore with hands on his knees. He had pushed it for as long as he could. The teleport over to Lenna had dropped him so low that he had gotten light headed afterwards.
“Yeah.” Keith agreed. He had somehow gotten ahold of someone's alcohol and managed to reek even worse than he had the day before.
‘Alcoholics find a way.’ Isaac thought to himself. Isaac wasn’t one to care about what people did in their spare time so he refrained from commenting on Keith directly but he preferred his party members, even temporary ones, to be sober for the entire mission. Keith was somewhat of an oddity. From what Isaac knew there weren’t very many darker skinned humans in their part of the world. Keith was also an accomplished wizard. What piqued Isaac’s curiosity was that no one knew what had caused an accomplished wizard from a far away land to end up sleeping on bar stools in poorly funded Adventurers’ Guilds in the Innerworld of all places. The weather wasn’t even nice. If Isaac was going to choose somewhere to be a washed up old mage he would have chosen a beach somewhere with a good view of the ocean or the capital which had a ton of people and money floating around to get lost in, not Ben’s End.
“I guess it’s time to walk.” Keith grumbled and started walking after the monster. He had let his wall of flames fade after the monster had left so he could save some mana. “Can you still track it?” He asked Isaac.
Isaac nodded. “Yes. It stopped a few hundred feet down the tunnel. I think it’s broken.” He commented.
“Broken?” Keith asked. “How so?”
“It’s like a…” Isaac tried to find something to liken it too but was having trouble. “Like a clock with a broken gear causing it to just keep ticking without moving the hands.”
Keith nodded eventually. “You think that something in its nature isn’t working right anymore. It didn’t know how to retreat and now that it has it doesn’t know how to attack anymore.” He thought aloud.
Isaac nodded. “Something like that.”
The cleanup of the monster went off without a hitch. They caught it and burned it to dust without much fanfare or trouble. With the monster gone all threats had been removed save for a pair of Ori-Masa that were bound and tossed head first in an empty barrel. The group returned to the caravan and soon enough all the wagons were moving again. They were going to be cutting it close with food and water for the horses but Keith, who was the head adventurer on the mission due to his level being the highest, said that if they did end up having to ditch the horses for some reason he would just ask the Safeharbor Adventurers’ Guild for help again. Isaac, Lenna, and Wo Lu had officially completed the reason they had made the six hour sprint to link up with the caravan. The Ori-Masa threat was no more. So everyone hoped.