Chapter 86 We Have Work To Do.

Isaac had Lenna’s shoulder in a death grip as they jogged down tunnel after tunnel in an attempt to get as far away, from whatever Isaac had felt, as possible. Kahtesh was trotting behind them but would occasionally stop and look behind them. Isaac hadn’t told the dragon to do so and he wasn’t sure if Kahtesh was getting some amount of sentience or if the presence was messing with him.

“How close is it?” Lenna asked. Her breathing was heavy but even. Her centuries of training were showing in her perfectly even stride and breaths.

Isaac shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s not that accurate. I just know, it’s out there.” He got out in between breaths. “Not close.” A few minutes later they made it to the main path and continued their flight in a straight line on an even path. As their progress increased Isaac started to feel the presence less and less. He slowed and then stopped. He turned around and looked towards where they had come from. Kahtesh was still right there but he was also looking behind them. “Alright buddy. Go back to sleep. We should be good.” Isaac told the dragon.

The dragon curled up like a dog and sank into the void. “Was it following?” Lenna asked.

Isaac shook his head. “I don’t know.” He sighed. “We need to let the guild know about this as soon as possible.” His breathing was labored as he tried to calm his beating heart to some degree. He started walking down the path towards Safeharbor and Lenna joined him.

“Can you still feel it?” Lenna asked.

Isaac glanced back over his shoulder. “Kind of… I don’t know why I couldn’t feel it before if it’s this strong.” He shook his head again. “I can only think of a few reasons and none of them are good.”

Lenna nodded in agreement. “Which do you think is most likely?”

“Either it can hide its presence or it was just created. Nothing else really seems plausible.” Isaac replied with a frown.

“When you are ready, let’s pick up the pace.” Lenna advised. The sooner the guild knew about whatever it was the better.

—

“Alice!” Isaac called out while jogging into the Guild Hall. She was sitting at her desk talking to Wo Lu. “We have a problem.”

Wo Lu turned to look at them and Alice sat up a bit straighter to see over her desk and mound of books and paperwork. “What is it?” She asked worriedly.

Isaac leaned against the desk breathing heavily. Lenna stopped a few feet behind him. “Something is out there.” Isaac eventually got out.

“Like what? What kind of something?” Alice demanded.

Isaac leaned in and dropped his voice. “Something stronger than me.” He told her earnestly.

“How-how so?” Alice stammered. She had a hard time picturing what could be stronger than Isaac that wasn’t a dragon or some other ancient evil.

“Whatever it was, its connection to the dark is stronger than mine. It gave me chills.” Isaac said with his eyes losing focus for a moment as he recalled the feeling. “I’m pretty sure it sensed me too.”

“There are a lot of dark things down here.” Wo Lu cut in. “How strong are you?” He asked Isaac.

“Strong enough to assassinate the Guild Master.” Isaac replied matter of factly.

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Wo Lu raised an eyebrow. It was an odd metric for strength but one able to be understood. “That doesn’t bode well.” Wo Lu replied. “I found something else just as troubling.”

“Oh?” Isaac asked.

Wo Lu nodded. “A mage came to pick up the remains of that chimera. He was flanked by two more.” He said grimly. “Whoever that fallen brother was, he had plenty of resources at his disposal.”

“So a drow mage has been making chimera like he’s planning to fight a god and something at least demigod level is hanging out on the other side of the spider tunnels. To top it all off the Jumping Spider population has spiked. We saw our first one yesterday and today we found over a dozen spider corpses that were clearly their doing.” Isaac summarized.

Alice had started taking notes and writing letters. “Isaac I need you to deliver this to the duke and Wo Lu I need you to track down the Guild Master and give him this one.” She said and passed them both sheets of paper. “Be careful they are still wet.”

Isaac tossed his in his Inventory for safekeeping and nodded. “Alright.” He said and started towards the door.

“Got it.” Wo Lu told her and joined Lenna and Isaac.

Once outside Isaac asked Wo Lu: “He’s not inside?”

Wo Lu shook his head and sniffed the air. “No. He was walking out as I was walking in.” He sniffed a few more times before picking a direction. “Godspeed.”

Isaac gave him a nod and headed towards the duke’s mansion with Lenna in tow. The pair crossed the town at a brisk walk. They had run enough for the day and Izen getting the information a few minutes earlier wasn’t likely to make a huge difference. Whatever was out there on the other side of the tunnels wasn’t close by and if the drow mage had taken his creation back to wherever his lab was he wasn’t likely to be ready to launch an invasion soon.

The pair stopped outside of the duke’s mansion. The guards shared a look. “Sir? Do you have an appointment with the duke?” One of them asked Isaac.

Isaac pulled the note out of his Inventory. “No. I have urgent information from the Adventurers’ Guild for him.” The guards didn’t react right away so he continued. “One of you take this to him. I’m not getting paid to break in and hand it to him personally.” He ordered and held out the paper. They both flinched. One of them grabbed the paper and gave Isaac a nod before disappearing into the mansion.

“Would, would you have done that? If you were getting paid to.” The other guard asked.

Isaac shrugged and turned around. “Depends on the money.” He told the man and the pair began their leisurely walk back to the guild to see if Alice had any updates.

—

“Something scary in the dark isn’t helpful Alice.” Edward complained.

Alice noticed Isaac and Lenna walking in. “That’s what he told me.” She replied exasperatedly and gestured towards Isaac.

Edward turned to look at Isaac. “I need more to go on than something ‘darker’ than you, whatever that means.”

Isaac leaned on the desk. “Okay, I can feel how dark something is. I have a skill called polarity sense. Lenna is dark enough for me to notice but not ridiculous or anything. A chimera is comparative I think. There was one that was a shadow-wolf, dragon, stone tentacle monster hybrid that felt darker than her but that was because of its connection to shadows from the shadow-wolf.” Isaac explained.

“So whatever it is has shadow magic.” Edward sighed. “That’s still not very helpful.”

Isaac shook his head. “You don’t understand. Either it has stronger shadow magic than me or it is way stronger than anything I have ever seen. Maybe a mix of both.”

Edward gave him a deadpan look. “This is what you get for talking about calling yourself the Lord of Darkness.” He accused.

Isaac flinched. “I did kinda tempt fate didn’t I?”

Edward and Lenna both nodded. “Yes.” They both replied.

Edward sighed and turned to look at Alice. “Make a gold level bounty to scout the area where mister Lord of Darkness felt something. I want to know what’s out there.”

Isaac gave Edward a side-long look. “I don’t know if that’s high enough. Make sure that whoever it is can hide their mana completely. I don’t know about whatever it is’s physical abilities but it sensed me through at least a thousand feet of rock and Celeste told me she can barely feel me when I’m standing in front of her.”

Edward nodded. “Add a recommendation for true stealth.” He told Alice.

“True stealth?” Isaac asked.

“Complete nondetection. Being fully hidden from all senses including magical ones.” Edward explained.

“There are other people who can do that?” Isaac asked.

Edward raised an eyebrow. “I should be sending you to go see what it is if you can do that.”

Isaac raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I can only do it for myself. I don’t have enough mana regeneration to do it for Lenna too.”

“Mana regeneration? The required spells don’t take continual mana expenditure.” Edward narrowed his eyes at Isaac. “How do you do it?”

Isaac shrugged. He looked around the mostly empty guild hall. “I guess others seeing it happen doesn’t really matter. Just, don’t tell anyone how it works if you figure it out.” He told Edward and put his hand on the larger man’s arm. Isaac poured shadows out and around him and Edward. He made the shadows as thin as they could be and still make a stable circuit to make them both disappear. The whole process only took about two seconds.

“What in the nine hells?” Edward spoke as he looked at the shadows covering his arm.

“I can’t keep this up with another person for very long. I can do it by myself indefinitely but I won’t leave Lenna behind to go get myself killed by something that may or may not be able to sense me through this. Nothing and no one else that I’ve met have been able to sense my presence through this but whatever that is, it worries me.” Isaac confided.

Edward nodded his understanding. “This is what you did when we were in the arena?” He asked rhetorically.

“Yeah.” Isaac replied.

“Okay.” Edward nodded. “Bring us back. We have work to do.”